09/19/2021
The last of our series of profiles for tomorrow evening’s show at the Chapel, featuring several musicians playing ‘ ceramic instruments:
Julia Elsas was born in Birmingham, Alabama and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her visual art encompasses printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, installation, and performance.
Julia has been an artist-in-residence at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia, Venice, Italy; Gowanus Studio Space, Brooklyn, NY; Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA; and Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA. She was a 2018/2019 New Jewish Culture Fellowship recipient and a 2019/2020 Keyholder Resident at the Lower East Side Print Shop.
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One of modern jazz’s most skilled navigators of the divide between inside and outside, freedom and swing," Cornetist and Composer Kirk Knuffke has “full command of his most demanding instrument” (All About Jazz).
Originally from Colorado, self-taught Knuffke began playing with Butch Morris after landing in NYC in 2005. This friendship resulted in 4 recordings and several European tours. Knuffke then joined the celebrated Matt Wilson Quartet in 2009, recording Gathering Call (Palmetto) featuring John Medeski. He also currently performs with Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom, Sifter with Mary Halvorson and Wilson, and groups led by Charlie Hunter, Ben Allison, Ray Anderson, Mark Helias, Bill Goodwin, Karl Berger, Michael Bisio and Ted Brown.
Accolades for Knuffke include NPR’s Best Jazz Album of the Year for 2017’s Cherryco (SteepleChase),winner of DownBeat Magazine’s “Rising Star” critics poll in 2015, and recipient of the Jerome Foundation Composers grant. In 2016, he placed 2nd in the European El Intruso Critics poll for trumpet.
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Kenny Wollesen has been a ubiquitous presence on the New York downtown music scene for over two decades, having played with everyone from Tom Waits to John Zorn, Bill Frisell to S*xmob, and David Byrne to Bebel Gilberto. Kenny has played on hundreds of recordings and builds his own one-of-a-kind musical instruments known as “Wollesonics.”
