Thursday November 21 * 7pm * $20-25 * TICKETS
Join Transparent Productions for an evening of music featuring Adam O’Farrill and Stranger Days touring in support of their new release “HUESO”. The duo of Sarah Hughes and Steve Arnold will open the show.
Adam O'Farrill - trumpet
Xavier Del Castillo - tenor saxophone
Walter Stinson - bass
Zack O'Farrill - drums & percussion
Sarah Hughes - reeds, vocals & electronics
Steve Arnold - bass
“There’s little disagreement that Adam O’Farrill is among the leading trumpeters in jazz - and perhaps the music’s next major improviser” — The New York Times
Brooklyn native, Adam O'Farrill (b. 1994) has emerged as a “rising star as a player and composer” (PopMatters) and “a blazing young trumpet talent” (The New York Times). Coming from a rich musical lineage, Adam’s grandfather was the boundary-pushing Cuban composer and arranger, Chico O’Farrill; his father is the composer, pianist, and activist, Arturo O’Farrill; his mother, Alison Deane, is a classical pianist and educator; and his brother, Zack O’Farrill, is a drummer and composer, who also performs in Adam’s band, Stranger Days. Further shaped by growing up in the rich and diverse musical community of New York City, Adam has cemented himself as one of the most in-demand trumpet players in New York City, as well as internationally. He has collaborated and performed with the likes of Hiromi, Mary Halvorson, Anna Webber, Samora Pinderhughes, Kaoru Watanabe, Tyshawn Sorey, Mulatu Astatke, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, Stimmerman, Patricia Brennan, Son Lux, Micah Thomas, and Sunny Jain.
O'Farrill's music is both abstract and personal, writing compositions that reflect subjects such as being mixed race, growing up in New York, family history, and spirituality. His primary band as a leader in the quartet, Stranger Days, featuring Xavier Del Castillo, Walter Stinson, and Zack O'Farrill. Their most recent album, Visions of Your Other, was released on Biophilia Records in November 2021, and was called “O’Farrill’s most melodically engaging effort yet”, by The New York Times. The album primarily features Adam’s original compositions, as well as an arrangement of a piece by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and a piece by Stinson. One of the album’s pieces, “Blackening Skies”, was set to animation by Elenor Kopka (Adult Swim, MTV). Visions of Your Other was named one of the best jazz albums of 2021 by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Popmatters, and was awarded the Preis Der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik in January 2022. In the spring of 2022, the band held a residency at Morning Glory Farm in Bethel, ME, exploring the intersection of farming and music. The residency was held in preparation for the recording of the band’s fourth album, which was recorded in May 2022. In the summer of 2022, Adam performed and recorded a new book of octet music, called For These Streets, loosely inspired by the literature and music of the 1930s. The album features Mary Halvorson, Patricia Brennan, Tyrone Allen, Tomas Fujiwara, David Leon, Kalun Leung, Kevin Sun, and Eli Greenhoe.
O'Farrill has received awards and recognition for both his trumpet playing and composition. In both 2019 and 2021, he won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Best Rising Star Trumpeter. Adam has also received commissions and grants from organizations such as The Shifting Foundation, South Arts, Roulette, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Metropolis Ensemble, The Jazz Gallery, as well as winning the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award. In 2014, O’Farrill won 3rd place honors in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Trumpet Competition.
Adam holds a B.M. in Jazz Performance from the Manhattan School of Music. During his time there, he studied composition with Reiko Füting, and trumpet with Laurie Frink, Thomas Smith, and Cecil Bridgewater. Previous to college, O'Farrill's teachers included Jim Seeley, Nathan Warner, Ambrose Akinmusire, and he attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music and Art and Performing Arts, in Manhattan.
https://adamofarrill.bandcamp.com/album/hueso
---
Sarah Marie Hughes is a performing and visual artist currently living in Washington, DC. She has 27 years of experience playing the alto saxophone and also doubles on the soprano saxophone, flute, and clarinet. She received training in classical saxophone performance from Dale Underwood at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in music education in 2008. In 2015, Hughes earned a master’s degree in jazz saxophone performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she studied with Jerry Bergonzi, Ran Blake, Anthony Coleman, and Donny McCaslin.
Hughes’ music is intuitive and genre-liberated while displaying an unquestionable command of her instrument and musical vocabulary. Her improvisations and compositions are infused with knowledge of both traditional and contemporary approaches and combine a love for “The Greats” with a drive to innovate.
Currently, Hughes performs with a variety of musicians in a free jazz context, weaving her own brand of melody and textures into spell-binding sets inspired by the sounds of legendary horn players such as Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and John Coltrane. She plays with a stellar group of improvisers in Janel Leppin’s Ensemble Volcanic Ash, a DC band with tenor saxophonist Brian Settles, guitarist Anthony Pirog, bassist Luke Stewart, drummer Larry Ferguson, and Janel Leppin on cello and compositions. Last winter Hughes spent 4 months playing in a band on a cruise ship in the Caribbean and since coming back has taken positions teaching private lessons at the International School of Music in Potomac, MD and also at the Music & Arts Center in Rockville, MD. She is getting ready to release an album of original music by her latest band, Zara.
In her spare time, Hughes creates abstract artwork, which she considers an outgrowth of her compositional and improvisational processes. Her medium is mostly ink and watercolor with some exploration involving acrylics. She is inspired by the works of Kandinsky, Miró, and Dali. During more spare time, Hughes likes to improve at rhythm tapping (some might call it tap dancing).
https://smh4music.bandcamp.com/
"One of the District of Columbia’s breakout artists of the moment is undoubtedly Steve Arnold. The young bassist has very quickly become one of the most in demand on the scene, and he plays with aplomb and with dexterity in seemingly every style.” - Michael J. West, Washington City Paper
Stephen Arnold is a bassist, composer, producer, and arranger based in Washington, DC. Originally hailing from Greenfield, Massachusetts, Arnold studied the upright bass with Herman Burney Jr. at the George Washington University, where he majored in Music and English. Since then he has gone on to play both upright and electric bass with many great artists including Todd Marcus, Fran Vielma, Sarah Marie Hughes, José André, Brian Settles, Sharón Clark, Thad Wilson, Dana Hawkins, Jared Sims, Simone Baron, Donvonte’ McCoy, Abe Mamet, Alfred Yun, Alex Hamburger, and Elijah Jamal Balbed and was a member of the 2018 class of Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead program at the Kennedy Center. Arnold's 2020 debut album Sea Change with his band of the same name was a finalist for jazz album of the year at the WAMMIE Awards and voted the #4 DC Jazz album of the year by Capitalbop. He is a member of acclaimed punk-jazz band ¡FIASCO! as well as a free-jazz trio with Sarah Marie Hughes and Kelton Norris, who released their debut recording Still Life in 2021.
Stephen Arnold & Sea Change are due to release their second album Until Now in October 2023. The album features a nine song suite of original compositions by Stephen Arnold and performances by some of DC's best: Sarah Marie Hughes on saxophones, Federico Gonzalez Peña on piano, Nelson Dougherty on guitar, Keith Butler, Jr. on drums, and Arnold on bass.
https://stephenarnold.bandcamp.com/