... (Iphigenia)

Artists

esperanza spalding

esperanza spalding (also known as irma nejando, or, i.e.) is a being who has grown to recognize love in the abstract and aspirational, and is now fully dedicated to learning how she can serve and embody actualized love through honor for and receptivity to, fellow humans, teachers, and practitioners of various regenerative arts. Bass, piano, composition, performance, voice and lyrics are tools and disciplines she is engaged in deeply to cultivate her own channel for transmitting care and beauty through vibration/sound/presence. She has written an Opera with Wayne Shorter slated for premier in Fall 2021. She is currently developing a mockumentary in collaboration with brontë velez and San Francisco Symphony, researching and developing liberation rituals in jazz and black dance and continuing a lifelong collaboration with practitioners in various fields relating to music, healing and cognition to develop music with enhanced therapeutic potential. She is presently paid by Harvard University to co-create and learn with students, working on developing creative practices that serve the restoration of people and land.

Wayne Shorter

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Wayne Shorter grew up poring through comic books and imagining adventures in undiscovered universes. He started his musical career on clarinet, but switched to tenor sax, which he studied at New York University. Upon graduating, he was drafted into the Army. In 1959, Shorter joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers as a saxophonist, eventually composing for the group and becoming its music director. During the Blakey period, Shorter also made his debut on records as a leader, cutting several albums for Chicago’s Vee-Jay label. After a few prior attempts to hire him away from Blakey, Miles Davis finally convinced Shorter to join his second historic quintet in September 1964, alongside Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, and Ron Carter. Staying with Miles until 1970, Shorter became the band’s most prolific composer at times, contributing tunes like “E.S.P.,” “Pinocchio,” “Nefertiti,” “Sanctuary,” “Footprints,” “Fall,” and the signature description of Miles, “Prince of Darkness.” While playing through Miles’s transition from loose post-bop acoustic jazz into electronic jazz-rock, Shorter also took up the soprano sax in late 1968, an instrument that turned out to be more suited to riding above the new electronic timbres than the tenor. As a prolific solo artist for Blue Note during this period, Shorter expanded his palette from hard bop almost into the atonal avant-garde, with fascinating excursions into jazz-rock territory toward the turn of the decade. This marked the beginning of Shorter’s exploration of unchartered territories that led him to form—with pianist Joe Zawinul—the world’s first fusion band, Weather Report, in 1970. Shorter’s playing grew mellower, pithier, more consciously melodic. By now he was playing mostly on soprano, though the tenor would re-emerge more toward the end of Weather Report’s run. Shorter’s solo ambitions were mostly on hold during the Weather Report’s days, resulting in but one atypical solo album, Native Dancer, a side trip into Brazilian-American tropicalismo in tandem with Milton Nascimento. Shorter also revisited the past in the late 1970s by touring with Freddie Hubbard and ex-Miles sidemen Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams as V.S.O.P. Shorter left Weather Report in 1985. Over the next decade, Shorter produced a succession of jazz albums for the Columbia label. During this period, he became known for collaborations with greats across genres, including Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Carlos Santana, and Don Henley. After three Columbia albums during 1986–1988, and a tour with Santana, he lapsed into silence, finally emerging in 1992 with Wallace Roney and the V.S.O.P. rhythm section in the A Tribute to Miles band. In 1995, Shorter released High Life on the Verve label, and in 1997 it received the Grammy^® for best contemporary jazz album. Two years later, he reunited with longtime friend Herbie Hancock for an intimate duet recording entitled 1+1, winning another Grammy^® for their collaboration. He guested on the Rolling Stones’s Bridges to Babylon in 1997, and on Herbie Hancock’s Gershwin's World in 1998. In 2001, he was back with Hancock for Future 2 Future and on Marcus Miller's M². In 2000, he formed his first acoustic group under his name, The Wayne Shorter Quartet, featuring Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade, which still remains. At the same time, Shorter began exploring the world of classical music. He paired with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw, and the BBC Chamber Orchestra, unveiling his new symphonic repertoire. He is the recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award (1998), the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2015), and most recently, the prestigious Polar Music Prize (2017). He has won a total of 11 Grammy Awards under his belt. He is currently in collaboration with Esperanza Spalding, composing his first opera, Iphigenia, his ultimate expression honoring the nobility of humanity: to awake one’s inherent power. 

Press

The New York Times Profiles esperanza spalding and Wayne Shorter's New Opera Iphigenia

To read more about Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding's ... (Iphigenia), an update of the ancient Euripides Greek play, The New York Times says is, "...eight years in the making and decades in the dreaming..." click here.
 

Classical Voice Interviews Wayne Shorter to Discuss His Opera Iphigenia

In this interview, Wayne Shorter dives into the long process of making ... (Iphigenia) and what it was like to join forces on it with esperanza spalding. To read the full interview, click here.