We are ready to present to you three amazing acts for the Spring of 2024

This spring, you will have the pleasure of experiencing Tord Gustavsen, Veslemøy Narvesen and Samora Pinderhughes in the Festsal at MUNCH.

• 06/03 20:00: Tord Gustavsen Trio

Tord Gustavsen is back, this time as a trio which will bring a new perspective on the melodic and pensive jazz that has secured him a steady group of listeners throughout the world.

Up until now, his three albums in trio format «Changing Places», «The Ground» and «Being There» plus a fourth album from 2018 have been acclaimed by both the audience and critics. His work with Norwegian singers Solveig Slettahjell and Kristin Asbjørnsen is also worth a mention, so is his several music awards.

At this concert, we will have the pleasure of experiencing Tord Gustavsen Trio with acclaimed bass player Steinar Raknes and drummer Jarle Vespestad, who has participated on all former albums. Their intense interpersonal play alongside an exquisite sensitivity towards the musical dynamics results in both melodic and creative chamber jazz.

Tord Gustavsen (piano), Steinar Raknes (bass), Jarle Vespestad (drums)

• 10/04 20:00: Veslemøy Narvesen

Known as one of the leading young drummers of the Norwegian jazz-scene, Veslemøy Narvesen explores her own creative voice with her newly-born solo-project. She gathers a wide collection of musical impulses and elegantly puts them together in her own, unique take on today’s alternative pop. Her music shows great ambition - combining a sophisticated jazz-performance with cinematic production and compositions. Her southern dialect also comes to show in some of her songs, as heard on her brand new debut-album with the title “We Don’t Imagine Anymore”, which was released on Jazzland Recordings fall 2023.

This night´s live-band includes some of the most skillful and up-and-coming jazz-musicians in Norway, presenting a fearless and tasteful combination of skillful playing and improvising in the frames of pop-music. “Anyone with a pair of ears will be stunned by her ability to take on music, whether she is a leader or a member of the group” - Citizen Jazz, 2023

Veslemøy Narvesen (drums and vocal), Nicolas Leirtrø (double bass), Håvard Aufles (keys), Oliver Skoe-Due (piano/vocal), Zakarias Meyer Øverli (sax), Selma French (violin and vocal)

• 15/05 20:00: Samora Pinderhughes

Samora Pinderhughes is a composer, pianist, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary artist known for striking intimacy and carefully crafted, radically honest lyrics alongside high-level musicianship and cutting visuals. He is an extraordinary collaborator with an eye for the bigger picture and has worked with the likes of Robert Glasper, Karriem Riggins and Common under the August Greene moniker. He is also known for using his music to examine sociopolitical issues and works in the tradition of the black surrealists.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Pinderhughes began playing music at two years old and started piano at seven. His life changed forever when he was granted entry into the Young Musicians Choral Orchestra program, a free program for Bay Area youth, where he first studied harmony, learned about jazz, and began composing. He also studied music in Cuba for the time he and his family lived there in his youth. After graduating high school, Samora moved to New York to study at Juilliard under master teachers Kenny Barron and Kendall Briggs. It was also during this time that he met his primary artistic mentor, MacArthur-winning playwright Anna Deavere Smith.

This started Pinderhughes down the path of writing lyrics and combining film and theater with his music in radical new ways. His first major political music project was „The Transformations Suite“, combining music, theater, and poetry to examine the radical history of resistance within the communities of the African Diaspora and was followed by The Black Spring EP in 2020, as well as his critically acclaimed „GRIEF“ in 2022.

Samora Pinderhughes (vocals, keys), Elena Pinderhughes (flute), Chris Patishall (piano), Elliott Skinner (vocals, guitar), Joshua Crumbly (bass)

All three concerts:

Doors open 19:00

Concerts start 20:00

Seated

More info and tickets can be found on the MUNCH website.