Night in the Garden

Date: Friday, November 10, 8:30 pm
Price: $40 Regular | $36 Friends | $30 Students and Seniors
Tickets include same-day Museum admission
A limited number of $20 rush tickets will be available on the day of the event.
Runtime: one hour (no intermission)

Join longtime collaborators of one of the most prolific musicians of the 20th century, Yusef Lateef, as they interpret a special banner painted by Night in the Garden of Love artist Shezad Dawood. Using the banner as a visual score, master musicians Adam Rudolph, Ralph Miles Jones, and Alexis Marcelo will share deep insights into the creative process Lateef called autophysiopsychic — music coming from the mental, physical, and spiritual self.

Presented in seven movements, Night in the Garden will lead you through the imagined garden, stopping along the way to reflect on the radiance of love. Prototypical sounds of spontaneous composition will be heard as the musicians dialogue with one another, responding to the feelings that radiate from the audience. Performing as the fourth member of the quartet, Dawood will blend sound and colour to create a truly multisensory experience.

Following the event, the banner painted by Shezad Dawood and a recording of the performance will be displayed in the exhibition at a later date. 

View the program

Bios

Adam Rudolph 
Percussion and Electronics

For the past four decades, composer and percussionist Adam Rudolph has performed extensively throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He has released over 30 recordings under his own name, featuring his compositions and percussion work. Rudolph composes for his ensembles Moving Pictures, Hu Vibrational, and Go: Organic Orchestra, a 30-piece group for which he has developed an original music notation and conducting system. Rudolph has performed with Don Cherry, Jon Hassel, Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, Muhal Richard Abrams, Shankar, Dave Liebman, Wadada Leo Smith, Philip Glass, and Fred Anderson, among others. He toured extensively and recorded 15 albums with Yusef Lateef, including duets and their large ensemble compositional collaborations. 

Rudolph is known as one of the early innovators of World Music. In 1978 he co-founded, with Foday Musa Suso, the Mandingo Griot Society, one of the first groups to combine African and American music, and in 1988, he recorded the first fusion of American and Moroccan Gnawa music with sintir player Hassan Hakmoun.

Alexis Marcelo
Piano and Keyboards

Alexis Marcelo is a pianist from New York City cultivated in the creative and forward-thinking traditions of African-American Music. He began his studies at the Harlem School of the Arts at an early age and eventually studied composition and improvisation with Dr. Yusef Lateef at the University of Massachusetts, where he developed a unique sound rooted in Autophysiopsychic music. As an improviser, Marcelo draws inspiration from both musical and non-musical sources, which include other musicians, the audience, and the immediate environment, with the hopes of creating a soulful experience that conveys those indescribable feelings from the heart.

Marcelo has performed all over the world with multiple artists in a diverse array of genres over the years, most recently sharing the stage with saxophonists James Brandon Lewis, Adam Rudolph, Ava Mendoza, and JD Parran. He is currently performing in the New York City Metropolitan Opera’s production of Anthony Davis’s Malcolm X.

Ralph M.Jones
Woodwinds

Ralph M. Jones was born, raised, and mentored in Detroit. He has been active as a performance artist in the African-American Instantaneous Compositional Tradition for over 40 years. As an internationally recognized artist, he toured, performed, and recorded with Dr. Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Wadada Leo Smith, Issa Abramaleem, Norman Connors, Kenn Cox, The MC5, Wayne Kramer, Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures and Go Organic Orchestra, and his ensemble, Seekers of Truth Revolutionary Ensemble (SOTRE), among many other stellar artists.

Jones earned his master’s degree in African-American Studies and his B.A. in Ethnomusicology, both from U.C.L.A. He has taught for 19 years in the CSSSA summer program at Cal-Arts, 5 Years at Oberlin College and four years at Spelman College. Ralph has also taught numerous master classes in musical concepts and performance in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, among other schools throughout the world.

Shezad Dawood

Shezad Dawood (b.1974) was born in London, where he lives and works. He studied at Central St Martin's, the Royal College of Art and Leeds Metropolitan University. Dawood is a Senior Research Fellow in Experimental Media at the University of Westminster.

As a multidisciplinary artist, Dawood interweaves stories, realities, and symbolism to create richly layered artworks spanning painting, textiles, sculpture, film and digital media. Fascinated by ecologies and architecture, his work takes a philosophical approach, asking questions and exploring alternative futures through what Dawood describes as 'world-building' and 'imagineering.' His practice is animated by research, working with multiple audiences and communities to delve into narrative, history and embodiment.

The Museum’s Performing Arts programming is generously supported by the Nanji Family Foundation.