This is a past event

NEXUS – Farewell Concert

with special guests Paul Winter, Steve Reich and Henrique Eisenmann

Presented with the Kvistad Foundation

NEXUS is widely recognized as one of the most influential percussion ensembles to have emerged in the post-war period and after 52 years this will be their farewell concert. NEXUS is especially excited to be joined at the concert by their long time collaborators and friends Paul Winter, Henrique Eisenmann and Steve Reich. The New York Times has called NEXUS “the high priests of the percussion world” and Steve Reich says, “probably the most acclaimed percussion group on earth.” NEXUS is in the Percussion Hall of Fame (along with Ringo Starr) and toured extensively, participating in over 60 international festivals, 4 times at the Kennedy Center, twice at the BBC Proms (Royal Albert Hall), 5 times in Carnegie Hall. The group is made up of four master percussionists internationally revered for virtuosity, innovation and extraordinary music out of the broadest array of percussion instruments imaginable. Their original compositions and arrangements, high-end commissions from Pulitzer prize-winners Steve Reich and Ellen Taafe Zwillich, Grammy-winner Libby Larsen, and Japanese master Toru Takemitsu, and famed collaborations with the likes of Canadian Brass, Kronos Quartet, and Richard Stoltzman, have created repertoire ranging from novelty ragtime and haunting African rhythms through award-winning improvised film music and ground-breaking compositions. The four members have all won Grammy Awards and the group was nominated for a Canadian Juno Award. Especially renowned for improvisational skill, NEXUS created the music for the National Film Board’s award-winning Inside Time, and the chilling score for the Academy Award-winning feature-length documentary The Man Who Skied Down Everest.  NEXUS wishes to acknowledge the generous support of Pearl/Adams and the Canada Council for the Arts. and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Paul Winter has toured the world, performing over 3,000 concerts in 52 countries. With his music, he has found a means to connect people to a sense of place, promote relatedness to the larger community of life, and assist groups supporting local cultural and biological diversity. Hundreds of his benefit concerts and various compositions have served environmental causes in a range of countries, including Russia, Brazil, Israel, Japan, and Spain. He has produced 53 albums for his Living Music label, seven of which have won Grammy Awards. In recognition of musical and ecological work, he has received a Global 500 Award from the United Nations, the Joseph Wood Krutch Medal from the United States Humane Society, the Peace Abbey’s Courage of Conscience Award, the Spirit of the City Award presented at New York’s Cathedral of St John the Divine, and an honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Hartford.

Steve Reich has been called “the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker) and “among the great composers of the century” (The New York Times). Starting in the 1960s, his pieces It’s Gonna Rain, Drumming, Music for 18 Musicians, Tehillim, Different Trains, and many others helped shift the aesthetic center of musical composition worldwide away from extreme complexity and towards rethinking pulsation and tonal attraction in new ways. He continues to influence younger generations of composers and mainstream musicians and artists all over the world. Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 and Different Trains, Music for 18 Musicians, and an album of his percussion works have all earned GRAMMY Awards. He received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge award in Madrid, the Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall, and the Gold Medal in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and awarded honorary doctorates by the Royal College of Music in London, the Juilliard School in New York, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, among others.
One of the most frequently choreographed composers, several noted choreographers have created dances to his music, including Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jirí Kylián, Jerome Robbins, Justin Peck, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, and Christopher Wheeldon. Reich’s documentary video opera works—The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot—opened new directions for music theater and have been performed on four continents. His work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint, followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians. “There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them,” The Guardian.

Drawing inspiration from different world genres, chants, voices, poems and animal sounds, Henrique Eisenmann is changing the paradigm of contemporary improvisation, creating an original musical universe that is powerfully inventive, authentic and accessible to anyone. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Eisenmann has always been intrigued with the idea of translating different musical sonorities to the piano. Eisenmann focuses on unique collaborations with artists from all different fields: dancers, poets, and actors. Among his latest releases, the 2022 album “Nação”  (Circus Label) has drawn unanimous praise from critics across the world. Eisenmann has performed in numerous international jazz festivals and has worked with dozens of outstanding musicians such as Paul Winter, Gunther Schuller, Luciana Souza, George Garzone, Matti Caspi and Tom Zé. Eisenmann is on the faculty of The Juilliard School (NYC) and is the Artistic Director of Jazz Lab.