Tomeka Reid with Selina Trepp and Adam Vida
Mills Music Now
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Presented by Mills College Music Department and Center for Contemporary Music
How and whether
Adam Vida, Selina Trepp and Tomeka Reid are a Chicago-based trio comprising cello,
percussion and live visual animation. Each performance is unique in that nothing is
decided in advance pre-performance. All members react and respond equally.
Tomeka Reid: cello
Selina Trepp: live visual animation
Adam Vida: percussion
Rafael Loza - video and recording engineer
Recorded at Experimental Sound Studios, Chicago, IL.
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Tomeka Reid
Described as a “New Jazz Power Source” by the New York Times, cellist and composer TOMEKA REID has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. Her distinctive melodic sensibility, always rooted in a strong sense of groove, has been featured in many distinguished ensembles over the years.
Reid grew up outside of Washington D.C., but her musical career began after moving to Chicago in 2000. Her work with Nicole Mitchell and various Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians-related groups proved influential. By focusing on developing her craft in countless improvisational contexts, Reid has achieved a stunning musical fluency. She is a Foundation of the Arts (2019) and 3Arts Awardee (2016), and received her doctorate in music from the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign in 2017.
Reid released her debut recording as a bandleader in 2015, with the Tomeka Reid Quartet, a vibrant showcase for the cellist’s improvisational acumen as well as her dynamic arrangements and compositional ability. The quartet’s second album, Old New, released in Oct 2019 on Cuneiform Records, has been described as “fresh and transformative--its songs striking out in bold, lyrical directions with plenty of Reid’s singularly elegant yet energetic and sharp-edged bow work.” Another reviewer noted that “while Reid’s compositional and technical gifts transcend jazz, they exemplify the tradition wondrously.”
Reid has been a key member of ensembles led by legendary reedists like Anthony Braxton (ZIM SEXTET) and Roscoe Mitchell(ROSCOE MITCHELL QUARTET, ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO), as well as a younger generation of visionaries including flutist Nicole Mitchell (BLACK EARTH ENSEMBLE, ARTIFACTS), vocalist Dee Alexander (EVOLUTION ENSEMBLE), and drummer Mike Reed (LOOSE ASSEMBLY, LIVING BY LANTERNS, ARTIFACTS). She co-leads the adventurous string trio HEAR IN NOW, with violinist Mazz Swift and bassist Silvia Bolognesi, and in 2013 launched the first Chicago Jazz String Summit, a semi-annual three-day international festival of cutting edge string players held in Chicago. In the Fall of 2019 Tomeka Reid received a teaching appointment at Mills College as the Darius Milhaud chair in composition.
Selina Trepp
Selina Trepp (Swiss/American b.1973) is an artist researching economy and improvisation. Finding a balance between the intuitive and conceptual is a goal, living a life of adventure is a way, embarrassment is often the result.
She works across media, combining performance, installation, painting, and sculpture to create intricate setups that result in photos, drawings and animations.
In addition to the studio-based work, Selina is active in the experimental music scene. In this context she sings and plays the videolah, her midi controlled video synthesizer, to create projected animations in real-time as visual music. She performs with a varying cast of collaborators and as one half of Spectralina, her long running audiovisual collaboration with Dan Bitney.
Adam Vida
Adam Vida is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, producer. percussionist and drummer. He is the Managing Director and Engineer at the Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago - ESS. Adam attended The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and since 1997 has been an active member of the independent music community in Chicago where he has performed and recorded with a variety of rock, jazz, improvised, and experimental music projects. He is best known for his associations with the bands U.S. Maple, Singer, Dhalgren, DRMWPN, Azita, Redmoon Theater, Central Falls, Ken Vandermark and has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe with various projects.
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