Artist and jazz musician Jason Moran joins Rail publisher and artistic director Phong H. Bui for a conversation. We conclude with a performance from poet, musician Janice Lowe.
To celebrate our participation in Printed Matter’s Virtual Art Book Fair, we’ve organized a week of NSE programming highlighting the many voices involved in art books and publishing. From February 24-28, you can view our virtual table and enjoy all the fair has to offer here.
In this talk
Jason Moran
Photo by Scott Suchman
Jazz pianist, composer, and performance artist Jason Moran is the Artistic Director for Jazz at The Kennedy Center. He currently teaches at the New England Conservatory. Moran is deeply invested in reassessing and complicating the relationship between music and language, and his extensive efforts in composition, improvisation, and performance are all geared towards challenging the status quo while respecting the accomplishments of his predecessors. His activity stretches beyond the many recordings and performances with masters of the form including Charles Lloyd, Bill Frisell, and the late Sam Rivers, and his work with his trio The Bandwagon has resulted in a profound discography for Blue Note Records.
An artist, writer, independent curator, Publisher and Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Rail, the River Rail, Rail Editions, and Rail Curatorial Projects. From 2007 to 2010 he served as Curatorial Advisor at MoMA PS1.
The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poem, and
we’re fortunate to have
Janice Lowe
reading.
Janice Lowe
Courtesy of Janice Lowe
Composer-pianist-poet and the author of LEAVING CLE and SWAM. Her musical theater compositions include “SOmewhere i Texas,” and “Sit-In at the Five & Dime.” She has composed music for plays including “Door of No Return” by Nehassaiu deGannes and arranged the music of Montague Ring for Tracie Morris' play “Impossible Man.” She is the author of Leaving CLE poems of nomadic dispersal. A recent Creative Capital awardee, Lowe was commissioned to compose Millie and Christine McKoy Sisters’ Syncopated Sonnets in Song, from Tyehimba Jess’s Olio. She has performed in Nona Hendryx’s Rock Solid Women Festival and with Anne Waldman and Fastspeaking Music. Leaving CLE Songs, the debut album of Janice Lowe & NAMAROON is available on Bandcamp. She is a co-founder of the Dark Room Collective.
The New Social Environment — Daily conversations with artists, writers, filmmakers, poets around the world where we discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality.