Evento

Kris Davis and Craig Taborn Piano Duo

Performance and seating will be onstage in the main auditorium of the E. Desmond Lee room. This concert will be professionally recorded and documented for an upcoming CD release.

Pianist-composer Kris Davis has prospered as one of the singular talents on the New York jazz scene, known for her ability to interweave jazz standards equally with experimental improvisations. Kris cites 20th century composers György Ligeti and Morton Feldman as inspirations in her quest to form complex compositions, yet she utilizes the sense of freedom found in avant-garde jazz to push these influences into new communicative territory. Her 2011 album, Capricorn Climber, made best of the year lists in The New York Times, NPR, and Art Forum. In 2015 she was granted the Doris Duke Impact Award.

Craig Taborn is as likely to be playing free-improvisation with Roscoe Mitchell (Art Ensemble of Chicago), as he is to be playing straight-ahead jazz at New York Citys Village Vanguard. Though as adept in composed solo piano settings (see 2011s critically acclaimed Avenging Angel) as with electro-acoustic sound collage (see 2004s electronic album Junk Magic), his work resists genre labeling. While he has had a transformative impact on jazz, he remains even more deeply invested in the avant-garde models he has been exploring ever since his teenage years in Minneapolis, citing Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra as influences. Jazz Times ranked Taborn in its 2013 critics poll as best piano player, and in 2014 he was granted a Doris Duke Artist Award.