January 26, 2024
The raucous liberatory collective Harriet Tubman, formed by guitarist-vocalist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis in 1998, advances a brash, enveloping, danceable sound fusing “genres” of Black music—“the digging of everything,” in the words of Amiri Baraka. Naming themselves after the great Black abolitionist Harriet Tubman, the collective expresses their commitment to social and political liberation through breaking the “chains” of received aesthetic labels of Black musical forms, as Lewis has put it. Harriet Tubman is widely regarded for their astonishing and transporting live and recorded performances, with their 2018 album, The Terror End of Beauty, landing on the year end lists of The New York Times and Rolling Stone. Tubman’s wide-ranging musical collaborations include albums with Cassandra Wilson, who collaborated with them on Black Sun, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Wadada Leo Smith, on their album Araminta, and a forthcoming release with producer/composer/singer Georgia Anne Muldrow. Harriet Tubman will be joined for this performance by their friend and fellow traveler, the shape-shifting bandleader, composer and musician Graham Haynes.
September - December, 2024
Artist in residence
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Dhrupad, the oldest living form of Indian classical music, has been practiced for at least twenty generations in the Dagar tradition (Dagar vani) by members of the Dagar family. In the twentieth century, Zia Mohiuddin Dagar revolutionized dhrupad by introducing its central instrument, the rudra veena—used for most of its history for accompaniment and private study—as a solo instrument for public listening. Zia Mohiuddin modified and redesigned the veena to produce a deep, soft sound created by finger plucking. His son, Ustad Mohi Bahauddin Dagar, is the world's leading performer of the rudra veena today. Born in Mumbai in 1970, he began studying sitar at age seven with his mother, Smt. Pramila Dagar, and later became a student of his father and his father’s brother, Zia Faridudin Dagar. Bahauddin has become acclaimed for his highly responsive playing style; expansive, prayerful sound; and commitment to dhrupad’s evolution and to Dagarvani’s engagement with European and American audiences, musicians and composers.
This fall's residency is part of Bahauddin’s multi-year collaboration with FourOneOne, spanning rehearsals, master classes, publications, live performances, and cross-stylistic encounters with New York’s many audiences and creative communities.