First Set: Matana Solo
Second Set: Matana and Myra Duet

Chicago born and bred, Matana Roberts is an alto saxophonist/composer/performer who works in various mediums of improvised sound and performance, and has been active in New York since 2001. A Vanlier and Brecht Forum fellow, as well as a 2008 and 2009 nominee for an Alpert Award in the Arts, she has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances worldwide with her own ensembles as well as with a variety of collaborative ensembles - such groups as Sticks and Stones, Burnt Sugar, Exploding Star Orchestra, the Oliver Lake Big Band, the Julius Hemphill Sextet, Myra Melford's Happy Whistlings, Jayne Cortez's Fire Spitters, Merce Cunningham Dance, and Savion Glover Dance. In 2008, the success of her leader debut, *The Chicago Project* (Central Control International), led critics to call Roberts "one to watch" (Kevin Legencre, *Jazzwise*) and "an eloquent, dramatic, tone warping free jazz artist right out of Ayler's anti bop tradition." (John Fordham, *London Guardian*) She has also recorded as a side woman on recordings with a large smattering of influential post rock ensembles such as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Savath and Savalas, and Thee Silver Mount Zion. In 2011 she will be releasing the 1st segment of her Blood Narrative COIN COIN on CST Records and will also be releasing Matana Roberts "live in london" on CCI.

A fearless musical adventurer – in both her composing and playing – Myra Melford has followed a fascinating path since determining to forge a career in music in 1980. Having studied classical piano into her teens, she had no real exposure to jazz until college. Improvisation rekindled her early love of the piano, and she plunged in to develop a signature style. At the keyboard, Melford recasts the blues and boogie-woogie of her native Chicago, folds in elements of the music of Eastern Europe and India, and blends them with the rangy, percussive avant-garde approach she cultivated in studies with Don Pullen and Henry Threadgill. This personal musical vocabulary is further enriched by a lush lyricism and organized by an architectural sense of composition that she derived from classical training. As veteran critic Francis Davis wrote: “(She) is the genuine article, the most gifted pianist/composer to emerge from jazz since Anthony Davis." With more than 30 recordings in her catalog – including 19 as leader or co-leader – Melford currently divides her time between teaching, composition and performance. Since 2004, she has been on the music faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where she has developed and taught a series of courses in contemporary jazz and improvisation-based music for performers and composers. She also lectures on innovations in jazz since the 1960s and other topics in contemporary improvised music.