Join Transparent Productions at Rhizome DC for a performance by Avram Fefer on reeds along with guest Keith Butler, Jr. on drums.
Sunday September 21. Doors at 7:00PM, music at 7:30PM. $20-$30, sliding scale. Advance tickets.
https://avramfefer.bandcamp.com
Avram Fefer is a New York-based composer, improviser, bandleader and player of multiple woodwinds. He has appeared on thirteen CD’s as a leader, many more as a sideman, and has performed in clubs and festivals throughout the USA, Europe, Japan, Africa, and the Middle East. His recent quartet recordings —Testament and Juba Lee -- featuring Marc Ribot, Eric Revis, and Chad Taylor — have garnered rave reviews, many Best of the Year listings, and numerous International festival invitations.
Avram’s work is notable for its diverse and multi-faceted approach to music making, embracing many styles and influences while maintaining a consistently strong personal voice across genres and instruments. He has performed with Brooklyn Raga Massive and with numerous West African Ensembles. He has also been a long-term member of Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar Arkestra and Adam Rudolph’s Go:Organic Orchestra, touring and recording many fine albums together.
Avram enjoys a variety of inter-disciplinary collaborations --- including with painters, poets, dancers, and sound designers and was honored to perform in ground-breaking theater productions such as Ivo Van Hove’s “Streetcar Named Desire” and Melvin Van Peebles’ “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song”. He is also the creator and performer of the Resonant Sculpture Project, a unique international series of solo acoustic interactions with the large-scale works of iconic sculptor Richard Serra. These solo RSP events have taken place in art galleries and museums around the world, including most recently, at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
He has performed in nearly every major venue in New York City, including Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Roulette, Brooklyn Museum, Harlem Studio Museum, Blue Note, the Stone, National Sawdust, Apollo Theater, and Pioneer Works.
Avram is grateful to have worked with many of his favorite musicians over the years: Archie Shepp, Amiri Baraka, Sunny Murray, Barry Altschul, Saul Williams, Reggie Washington, David Murray Big Band, Tony Allen, Mingus Big Band, Michael Bisio, William Parker, Jean Jacques Avenal, Eric Revis, Chad Taylor, Roy Campbell Jr., Bobby Few, The Last Poets, John Tchicai, Graham Haynes, Burnt Sugar, Butch Morris, Adam Rudolph, David Gilmore, David Fiuczynski, Dougie Bowne, Ben Allison, Steve McCraven, Frank Lacy, Jay Clayton, Newman Baker, Horace Parlan, Brandon Ross, Essiet Essiet, Alan Silva, Dennis Charles, Matt Wilson, James Hurt, John Betsch, Cheik Tidiane Seik, Joseph Bowie Big Band, Paulo Fresu, Brise Wassy, Jack Gregg, Kaissa Doumbe, Nat Reeves, Jeff Tain Watts, Yoshiko Chuma, Karl Berger, Kirk Lightsey, Francis M'bappe, Herb Robertson, Steve Swell, Famoro Diabate, Abou Sylla, Abdoulaye Diabate, Mark Helias, Vincent Segal, Fred Hopkins, Aruan Ortiz, Gerald Cleaver, Warren Smith, John Medeski.
Having come of age in the cultural melting pot of Wilmington, North Carolina, Keith Butler, Jr. has deep roots in many musical traditions. Due in no small part to his versatility and creativity on the drum set, he has become a mainstay of the Washington D.C. music scene, performing with some of the area’s top bandleaders, including Brian Settles, Saltman/Knowles, Amy K. Bormet, Sarah Hughes, Luke Stewart, Elijah Jamal Balbed, Alex Hamburger, and Stephen Arnold. Butler was also a founding member of adventure music ensemble The New World, and is a member/composer of avant-jazz quartet ¡FIASCO! Butler has composed scores for DC productions of the plays Vietgone, and Venus (a staged reading,) both directed by Natsu Onoda-Power as well as Classic Red, a new play by DC playwright Abigail Chase. Butler released his debut album, Greener Grasses, in April of 2019, and is currently in the finishing stages of his second album. Butler is also a 2022 graduate of the MFA in Music Composition program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.