COMMON GROUND
FESTIVAL COMMISSION
Houston MC Jawwaad Taylor, and festival organizer Ingebrigt HaÌŠker Flaten, will pilot the 90-minute commissioned piece, Common Ground. The Texas-based musicians will lead an ensemble of five American creatives, such as Lisa E. Harris, who the Huffington Post recently called “one of 14 artists who are transforming opera,” and three Norwegian musicians, including HaÌŠkon Kornstad, a Norwegian Grammy-nominated artist who blends opera arias with jazz.
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Tying together spirituals from Norwegian and African American traditions, the ensemble will deconstruct traditional forms and improvise on melodies, rhythms, and vocal fragments found within each history.
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Participating musicians include:
Lisa E. Harris: voice (Houston)
Gunvor Gustavsen: voice (Oppdal/Norway)
Chase Jordan: vibraphone (Houston)
Jawwaad Taylor: trumpet, sampler (Houston)
Håkon Kornstad: tenor saxophone, voice (Oslo/Norway)
Zachary Watkins: guitar (Oakland
Marshall Trammell: drums (Oakland)
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten: bass (Austin)
"If we enter into the business of deconstructing these spells (the matrix of spirituals) sonically, musically, brutally, will we also address the dominant ideologies embodied in the forms themselves? The cold winds have been blowing for some time now.” – Marshall Trammell on Common Ground