Thursday, April 12 & Friday, April 13
April Weekend with Wolter Wierbos

Wolter Wierbos

Where's Wierbos Thursday, April 12, 5:30 pm Seattle Art Museum Free and open to the public Art of Jazz: Seattle JazzED New Works Ensemble, directed by Wayne Horvitz, with special guest Wolter Wierbos Thursday, April 12, 8pm Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center Tickets $10 in advance (buy now); $12 at the door Wolter Wierbos solo & duo w/ Julian Priester Friday, April 13, noon Cornish College of the Arts, PONCHO Concert Hall Free and open to the public Wolter Wierbos workshop Friday, April 13, 8pm The Royal Room Admission is free; donations directly support the artist Wolter Wierbos solo and with the Sonny Clark Memorial Sextet

Updated March 28: Wierbos also performs with Johnaye Kendrick’s Painting the Town Red at the Royal Room, April 13

by Schraepfer Harvey

I first saw Dutch trombonist Wolter Wierbos solo in an October 2005 Earshot Jazz presentation at the now closed Consolidated Works, home at the time to an early iteration of Trimpin’s Sheng High. Stop. Read that sentence again; it contains the ingredients of a rare and vanished magic formula, completely unplanned, unique to that space and those artists. This April, the humorous and stunningly virtuosic Dutch trombonist engages Seattle audiences in four rare appearances: three concerts and a workshop.

The formidable improviser performs solo trombone with a musicality and authenticity characterized by decades of performances around the globe. Since 1979, he has performed in creative improvised ensembles from Cumulus (Ab Baars and Harry de Wit), the Gerry Hemingway Quintet and the Frank Gratkowski Quartet to his own band, Celebration of Difference, in theater, dance, television and film. He’s performed with Henry Threadgill, the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra (led by Alexander von Schlippenbach) and the European Big Band (led by Cecil Taylor), and he is a key, active member of the renowned Instant Composers Pool (ICP) Orchestra with Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink.

In 2005 at ConWorks, Wierbos, maybe thirty minutes into a solo trombone improvisation, just walks off the stage and into the Trimpin installation. Without hesitation, a rapt audience follows and crowds the piece, lengths of reed-outfitted bamboo attached to a light-activated pulley system. To Trimpin’s score of reflective surfaces (CDs) arranged nearly 30 feet across the gallery wall, the bamboo lifts and falls in buckets of water, like the inhaling and exhaling on a harmonica. The crowd obstructs bits of the score, which results in improvised tones from the Trimpin system. Wierbos improvises on the whole thing in long tones. Really. Amazing.

Where’s Wierbos

Thursday, April 12, 5:30pm
Seattle Art Museum
Art of Jazz: Seattle JazzED New Works Ensemble, directed by Wayne Horvitz, with special guest Wolter Wierbos
Free and open to the public
Wierbos pairs up with Wayne Horvitz’s adventurous and skilled Seattle JazzED ensemble. It promises to be an energizing evening for the young music students and improvisers, in a great contemporary setting underneath Cai Guo-Qiang’s white Tauruses, Inopportune: Stage One.

Thursday, April 12, 8pm
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center
Wolter Wierbos and Julian Priester
Tickets are $10 in advance; $12 at the door; Earshot Jazz members and seniors receive $2 discount; students pay half price. Tickets available at www.brownpapertickets.com 1-800-838-3006.
Both consummate musicians and skilled trombonists, Wierbos and Priester perform together in the recently retrofitted Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Wierbos also performs solo.

Friday, April 13, noon
Cornish College of the Arts, PONCHO Concert Hall
Wolter Wierbos workshop
Free and open to the public
Wierbos brings his life of music experiences and distinctive approach to improvisation to Cornish for this trombone workshop. The public and all instrumentalists are encouraged to attend.

Friday, April 13, 8pm
The Royal Room
Wolter Wierbos solo and with the Sonny Clark Memorial Sextet
Admission is free; donations directly support the artist
Wierbos performs music by Herbie Nichols with Wayne Horvitz’s bop-era tribute ensemble.