Monday, February 16, 2009 - 8:00pm
Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
35th Anniversary Performance
Corey Wilkes, trumpet + flugelhorn
Ernest Dawkins, saxophones
Kahil El'Zabar, percussion
Please join Ars Nova Workshop for the 35th anniversary celebration of Chicago's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.
Founded by Kahil El'Zabar and Edward Wilkerson, Jr., the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble fuses contemporary Afro-American music with traditional African instrumentation and rhythms. Now featuring the remarkable Corey Wilkes, member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Ernest Dawkins of the New Horizons Ensemble, the trio's "harmonically provocative and rhythmically seductive" (Chicago Tribune) performances impart an ancestral wisdom that conjures an energy rarely encountered in contemporary music.
Kahil El'Zabar is one of Chicago's jazz treasures. A member of the AACM, El'Zabar has performed alongside a myriad of jazz greats and was a member of the bands of Stevie Wonder, Cannonball Adderley, Dizzy Gillespie and Nina Simone (who he also designed clothes for). He was also chosen to do the arranging for the stage performances of The Lion King. Rising star Corey Wilkes has shared the stage with Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Soulive, James Moody, Meshell Ndegeocello, Von Freeman, Fred Anderson and Will Calhoun.
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Ars Nova Workshop is a Philadelphia nonprofit jazz and experimental music presenting organization. As a facilitator between artists and their audiences, Ars Nova Workshop works to inform, inspire and challenge listeners in order to elevate the role of jazz, improvisation and experimental music in contemporary culture.