Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet in LA Tuesday

REDCAT continues its fall music series with a fusion of new music, jazz and improvisation from Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet. About: Jazz has lauded the group: "They plumb the union of jazz and classical styles with results that are melodic, crystalline and haunting." This special concert will be presented at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater on Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 8:30 pm.

Described as a "defiant cross-breeder of genres," Wayne Horvitz has lead a diverse array of new music ensembles including The President, Pigpen, Zony Mash, and the Four Plus One Ensemble. A co-founder of the New York Composers Orchestra, he has performed and collaborated with Bill Frisell, Butch Morris, John Zorn, Robin Holcomb, Fred Frith, Julian Priester, Philip Wilson, Michael Shrieve and Carla Bley, among others and gained notoriety for being the keyboardist of the band Naked City.

Horvitz' Gravitas Quartet brings together four uniquely defined voices of new music, jazz, and improvised composition to explore the depths of texture, sonority, rhythm, and ensemble fluidity available to masters working with a broad palette.

A quartet without a percussionist, Gravitas Quartet consists of pianist Wayne Horvitz, cellist Peggy Lee, bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, and trumpeter Ron Miles. All of the members have been hailed as harbingers of modern music--each emerges from a vast musical background to redefine the sonic landscape. Gravitas Quartet has two releases on the Songlines label, Way Out East (2006) and One Dance Alone (2008).

Of Way Out East, Down Beat's Bill Shoemaker wrote, "Whether drawing upon the blues or a waltz, Horvitz is not simply manipulating a template, but creating a time-warped ambience, in which the listener feels a stillness that is languid and foreboding. The idiom-free improvisations provide ballast, preventing the album from sinking into sentimentality. Peggy Lee, Ron Miles and Sara Schoenbeck are exquisitely balanced, their every detail precisely etched. For the most part, they are slightly understated in the improvisations; when they move to the foreground, they are persuasive, as is Horvitz."

Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet will perform at REDCAT on Tuesday, November 2, 2010. Curtain for performance is 8:30 pm. Tickets are $20 ($16 for students with current I.D.) and are available at www.redcat.org or by calling 213 237-2800. REDCAT is located at the corner of W. 2nd and Hope Streets, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).