An exciting evening of live music comes to the Wexner Center this Thursday, April 4th as the John Hollenbeck 18-piece Large Ensemble takes the stage. Thursday’s concert celebrates the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble’s most recent release, Songs I Like a Lot on Sunnyside Records. The album features vocalists Kate McGarry and Theo Bleckmann and Hollenbeck’s arrangements of songs by Jimmy Webb, Imogen Heap, Ornette Coleman, and others.
The John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble’s previous albums, A Blessing (Omnitone) and Eternal Interlude (Sunnyside Records), both received Grammy nominations. In 2007, Hollenbeck was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2012 he was awarded a Doris Duke Performing Artists Award. He has been commissioned recently by Bang on a Can All-Stars, Gotham Wind Symphony, Ethos Percussion Group, the Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia), the Orchestre National de Jazz (Paris; funded by the Chamber Music America French-American Jazz Exchange), and the hr-BigBand (Frankfurt, Germany
“Hollenbeck is taking the big band into the future.”—Chris Barton, LA Times
“John Hollenbeck’s 18-piece Large Ensemble can explode with rhythmic drive and technical dazzle, or it can evoke serene calm, tone poetry and even prayer. It’s a big band for a new eclectic world, building on the legacy of seminal big-band composer Bob Brookmeyer and other role models. Hollenbeck holds it together with intricate drumming, compositional acumen and searing wit as he marshals the resources of top jazz improvisers.”—David Adler, TimeOut
This is a band literally so big the Wexner can’t fit them onto their jazz cabaret stage. They assured us they will have plenty of room for their outsized sound.
John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble
featuring Kate McGarry and Theo Bleckmann
Thu, Apr 4, 2013 | 8:00PM
Wexner Center
Here’s a live clip of the band: