Tiger Trio

Saturday, May 20, at 19:30
main stage

Myra Melford (piano)
Nicole Mitchell (flute)
Joëlle Léandre (double bass)

Photo: Sakari Puhakka

The trio brings together some of the most idiosyncratic female jazz players of the middle and older generation from the USA and France. While we have already hosted Myra Melford and Joëlle Léandre at the festival, Nicole Mitchell will perform in Cerkno for the first time. The trio was formed in 2015 by Myra Melford after she received a prestigious scholarship from the Doris Duke Foundation and had to choose a line-up to perform at the New Frequencies Fest. The successful concert at this festival showed the exceptional chemistry between the musicians, so they decided to continue as a jointly led trio. In their music, the chamber structure of the compositions is in the foreground, which the skilled musicians use as a springboard for various combinations and orchestrations, from ecstatic joint playing through various duets to solo interventions by each of the members. In their hands, the process of spontaneous composition thus becomes an unusual combination of unexpected turns and deliberate clarity of compositional procedures. Their debut album Unleashed, was released to critical acclaim in 2016 on the prestigious French label RogueArt. The trio’s interplay was described by The Free Jazz Collective as “remarkably disciplined and focused, with an emphasis on careful collaboration and mutuality that gives each track a unified feel.” The second album Map of Liberation (RogueArt, 2018) also earned further words of praise from the Free Jazz Collective, stating “There’s an excitement and a joy here that’s not often paralleled in any music. It’s colorful. It’s playful. It’s physical. It’s powerful.”