Recipient Information
Location
New York, New York
Year of Award
2021
Grant or Fellowship
Jazz Road Creative Residencies Grant
Grant Amount
$40,000
About the Project
Previte, joined by saxophonist Charlie Hunter, will rehearse and perform compositions from BLUEPRINTS, a project begun earlier to foster local large ensemble development in Greensboro, NC. Partner venues for performances include the Revolution Mill, Studio 413, and The Flat Iron. Lectures/masterclasses will take place for students at Greensboro's North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest historically black college in the US.
Residency Location
Greensboro, NC
About the Artist
Bobby Previte is a composer and performer whose work explores the nexus between notated and improvised music. One of the seminal figures of the 1980s New York Downtown scene, Previte is the recipient of the Greenfield Prize for Music and a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as multiple awards for composition from the NEA, NYFA, NYSCA, NY State Music Fund, and the American Music Center. Mr. Previte has been an artist-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy, Civitella Ranieri, The Montalvo Arts Center, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, and nine times at MacDowell. He has given workshops and masterclasses at Princeton University, Eastman School of Music, The New School, New York University, the Walker Art Center, Istanbul University, University of Washington, and Perth University. His original compositions have been recorded and released on Sony, Elektra, Rykodisc, Palmetto, New World, Ropeadope, Tzadik, Thirsty Ear, Cantaloupe and Rarenoise.
Leading a plethora of diverse ensembles from his instrument, the drums, he has stood on stages and collaborated with an unlikely array of leading lights in and beyond the music world, including renowned composer John Adams, Terry Adams of NRBQ, pantheon filmmaker Robert Altman, country music star Jessi Colter, blues great Johnny Copeland, composer and thinker Lukas Foss, computer-music pioneer Lejaren Hiller, seven-string guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter, recently re-discovered genius Julius Eastman, Rock author and ambassador Lenny Kaye, Lounge Lizards leader John Lurie, jazz/noise shredder Sonny Sharrock, folk hero Victoria Williams, “Captain Kirk” William Shatner on Saturday Night Live, maestro Michael Tilson-Thomas, the legendary Tom Waits, and, most recently, punk icon Iggy Pop.
His recent works include: TERMINALS, Five Concertos for Percussion Ensemble and Soloist, with SO Percussion, released 2014 by Cantaloupe Music; TERMINALS QUARTETS, the percussion only version of Terminals, summer 2016, by Cantaloupe Music; MASS, for choir, pipe organ, and metal trio, 2017 by Rarenoise Records; and RHAPSODY, a song cycle on the subject of migration featuring Zeena Parkins, John Medeski, Nels Cline, Fabian Rucker, and Jen Shyu, 2018 by Rarenoise. His latest work is BLUEPRINTS, a free-wheeling, spontaneous, conducted reading of, and improvisation on, fragments of every composition he has written from 1979 to the present, projected on screen for ensemble and audience members alike to read.