August is trumpet month in New York, more or less. With the third annual Festival of New Trumpet Music – FONT Music – taking place at venues from the Jazz Standard to Tonic from Aug. 2-27, the sound of that brassy horn should be echoing from skyscraper to skyscraper.
The festival begins with “FONT Music: For Lester Bowie” from Aug. 2-7 at the Jazz Standard. Opening the program will be Bill Dixon and performers throughout the week include Cuong Vu Trio, Dennis Gonzalez, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra and Roy Campbell Jr.
The second week, titled “Other Music,” will take place at Tonic from Aug. 12-15 with performances by Roy Campbell Jr., Shane Endsley and Kneebody, Avishai Cohen and Ray Vega. The next week takes place at Spark and is aptly named “New Bands,” as it does feature some of the newer names in the festival.
FONT Music’s final week is “Seminar Week: A Week of Masterclasses and Concerts,” from Aug. 22-27 at the Yamaha Artist Services Center. The masterclasses and concerts will be given by musicians including Lew Soloff, the Manhattan Brass Quintet, Mark Gould (former principal trumpet of the Metropolitan Opera) and Jeremy Pelt, who will be premiering a new work by Max Siegel.
FONT Music was founded by Roy Campbell Jr. and Dave Douglas (pictured) in 2003 (they were joined by Jon Nelson in 2004) to promote the creation of avant-garde, experimental and adventurous music for all genres, from jazz to hip-hop. More information is available at www.fontmusic.org.
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