Saturday, October 26, 2024
2PM
Free and open to the public
RSVP here
Join us for a public performance with Awilda Sterling-Duprey presenting her series “…blindfolded,” where she blindfolds herself and makes abstract marks on papers in response to a musical score. For this special performance, Sterling-Duprey will be in dialogue with local New Haven and CT-based musicians providing improvisational sounds that draw from jazz and Caribbean influences. She will allow her body to feel and translate the music into rhythmic bodily movements articulated into bright pastel markings, lines, and textures onto black construction paper. Accompanying musicians include Jesse Hameen II (drums), Johnathan Moore (cello), Nelson Bello (Barril), Michael Carabello (keys), Morris Trent (bass), and Stephen Gritz King (saxophone).
ABOUT AWILDA STERLING-DUPREY
Awilda Sterling-Duprey (b. 1947- San Juan, PR) is an experimental, independent, and multidisciplinary artist that works and lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sterling-Duprey’s work explores identity, gender, diaspora, language, and migration, challenging conventional notions of cultural, national, and gendered boundaries. Her work intertwines marginalities of self-representation and resistance, confronting the silencing and invisibilizing of Afro-Caribbean women. Working with multidisciplinarity and feeding from Yoruba Caribbean traditions, Sterling-Duprey transgresses the boundaries between drawing, painting, and performance through a decolonizing practice that challenges conventions in Puerto Rican fine arts traditions.
She is a founding member of Pisotón, the first experimental dance collective in Puerto Rico. Recent group exhibitions include Puerto Rico Negrx, curated by Marina Reyes Franco & María Elena Ortíz, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (MAC), San Juan, PR; no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria, curated by Marcela Guerrero, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US; Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US; Cimarronas: artistas negras y afrodescendientes, Museo Casa Escuté, Carolina, PR; Untitled II, Kilometro 0.2, San Juan, PR.
MUSICIANS:
Jesse Hameen II
Drummer Jesse Hameen II is a New Haven bred musician with a mission. He is dedicated to entertaining, teaching, being beneficially involved in the Greater New Haven community and inspiring others to attain a higher level of spiritual consciousness. Driven by his desire, he encourages others to know that life’s conditions can be changed and improved. Jesse is a “Human Excellence Advocate.” Jesse has performed, traveled and recorded with many jazz legends during his professional music career, which spans over 60 years. He is also a recipient of the prestigious 2023 “Ellington Fellows Award” for Jazz Masters, from Yale University School of Music. Hameen has worked with an extensive list of musicians including: Ruth Brown, Charles Brown, Grover Washington Jr., George Benson, Lena Home, Ms. Irene Reid, Gloria Lynne, Freddie Cole, Stanley Turrentine, Curtis Mayfield, & The Impressions, Ruby & The Romantics, Charles Earland, Jimmy McGriff, Jimmy Witherspoon, Hank Crawford, Lou Donaldson, Etta Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Rodney Jones, Leon Thomas, Pharaoh Sanders, Little Jimmy Scott, Blue Mitchell, Kenny Burrell, Brook Benton, Arthur Prysock, Jimmy Ponder, Melvin “Sparks” Hasan, Major Holly, Doug Carn, Curtis Fuller, Bobby Watson, Harold Vick, Freddie Hubbard, Jamil Nasser, Dr. Lonnie Smith, David “Fathead” Newman, Kenny Baron, George Adams, Benny Powell, Curtis Fuller, Rueben Wilson, George Adams, Talibe Kibwe, Paul Brown, Christian Sands, Donald Smith and others.
Johnathan Moore
Johnathan Moore was born in New Haven, CT. As a child, he was a part of a musically inclined family. Johnathan Moore attended Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School, where he began to grow his roots on the cello. After middle school, he then attended Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School. During his junior year of high school, Johnathan received 1st Place in the Yale School of Music Solo Competition in 2014 off his original piece, “Journey” before graduating. He then attended Southern Connecticut State University where he majored in music. Throughout his years of college, he was awarded with multiple scholarships through the Stutzman Family Foundation, along with performing in partnership with New Haven Symphony Orchestra as a soloist in locations such as the Shubert Theatre and the Arts & Ideas Festival. He then graduated Southern Connecticut State University with a Bachelor’s degree in music along with achieving the Mike Moss Memorial Award For Excellence Music. Johnathan Moore has displayed his gift in venues such as the Guggenheim Museum on 5th Avenue, New York & Alice Tully Hall on Broadway. Johnathan’s goal as a musical artist is to give the listener a refreshing experience through his gift in music.
Nelson Bello
Hartford, Connecticut native Nelson Bello is a percussionist, recording artist, and educator with a career that spans 20 years and beyond. He has received music education from Guakia, The Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, and The Hartford Conservatory. Although Nelson would consider his “main instrument” to be the congas, he is well-versed in all auxiliary percussion instruments, which include, but are not limited to the bongos, timbales, cowbell, guiro, chekere, maracas and many other noted Puerto Rican and African instruments. He plays in various ensembles that transport musicians from jazz to latin jazz and beyond. Nelson’s vast musical knowledge has allowed him to cross paths with such musical icons as Cheo Feliciano, Ismael Miranda, Tony Vega, Charles Flores, the aforementioned Andy Gonzalez, Curtis Brothers Nelson is the co-founder of “TROMBEATZ”, alongside trombonist Hommy Ramos. “TROMBEATZ” recently released their debut album, “A Caribbean Thing”, in conjunction with Truth Revolution Recording Collective and The Innovative People.
Michael Carabello
California-born, Hartford, CT bred pianist Mike Carabello is a multi-talented musician in the tri-state area. Carabello is a product of the Artist’s Collective Youth Jazz Orchestra under master artist in residence Rene McLean as well as the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz. Mike has worked with bassist Nat Reeves, drummer Ronnie Burrage, saxophonist Rene McLean, trombonist Steve Davis, Bassist Matt Dwonszyk, and has studied piano under pianists Rick Germanson, Andy Laverne, and Alan Palmer. He has performed at The White House for First Lady Michelle Obama, The Ninth Note Jazz Club, Black Eyed Sally’s Jazz Club, The Side Door Jazz Club, and The New Haven “On The Green” Jazz Festival to name a few. He is also the pianist for a few projects in the Connecticut area including Erica T. Bryan and the New Mosaic, and The Lost Tribe.
Morris Trent
Morris Trent is a bassist (double bassist) and guitarist born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. Morris made makeshift guitars using two pieces of wood and rubber bands as a child with a neighborhood friend. Morris’s mother, Nannie Trent, was a pianist, noticed his continued interest in music and bought him his first guitar at the age of twelve. At the age of fourteen, he started playing with local bands in the New Haven area; establishing his musical foundation of R&B and funk. At the age of seventeen, one of his older musician friends introduced him to two world renowned musicians known as the Buster Brothers; Eddie & Bobby Buster and worked with them for 26 years. At that time, organist and pianist Eddie and Bobby Buster just returned home to the Bridgeport/New Haven area after performing in Chicago with the legends Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons. Morris has earned a name for himself as a talented musician in New Haven area. Morris has collaborated with other respected musicians such as Dickey Meyers, Hank Bolden, William Fluker, Kalim Zarif, Jesse Hameen II and Michael Coppola.
Stephen Gritz King
Stephen “Gritz” King is a Connecticut born and raised alto saxophonist, keyboardist, and producer. He has played on various stages from New York’s Brooklyn Bowl & Rockwood Music Hall, to New Haven music staples such as Cafe 9 and The State House, along with many other places. His sound has the influence of soul, r&b, gospel, Black American music, Neo-soul with a hint of Broadway. As a creator, Gritz has produced all of his released music, music for children’s books, and has created and tracked horn parts for various artists. His goal in music is to create authentic sounds that make the listener feel.