Saturday, November 12, 2022
8:00pm Kresge Auditorium, MIT
15th Annual Herb Pomeroy Memorial Concert
Featuring flutist Elena Pinderhughes
MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble
Frederick Harris, Jr., Music Director
LIVE STREAM LINK: https://web.mit.edu/webcast/mta/f22/6/
This annual event honoring Herb Pomeroy (1930-2007) MIT’s “Father of Jazz,” features flutist Elena Pinderhughes, who has performed with major artists including Herbie Hancock, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Hubert Laws, and Common, among others. Ms. Pinderhughes recently made her debut with the New York Philharmonic in the world premiere of Etienne Charles’s San Juan Hill: A New York Story.
This special concert will feature music by Pinderhughes, Stevie Wonder, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Duke Ellington, and Chick Corea, among others.
Elena Ayodele Pinderhughes is a flutist and vocalist from the Bay Area, California. Elena’s interest in music started at an early age. She began singing and playing the flute at age 7. By age 9 she was performing and recording with local bands and recorded her first CD, “Catch 22.” At 11, she was featured in an HBO special on young musicians entitled "The Music in Me.” Versatile in many styles, Elena has won numerous awards for “best soloist” at festivals and from Downbeat magazine. A 2013 YoungArts Gold Award recipient, U.S Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and Downbeat Magazine’s 2016 “Rising-Star Flutist, she was a member of the Grammy Band and Choir, San Francisco Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Young Musicians Choral Orchestra.
Elena has performed in numerous venues, including: Carnegie Hall, the White House, the Kennedy Center, Monterey Jazz Festival, Marciac Festival, Coachella Music Festival, and Montreux Jazz Festival. She has performed in jazz festivals and clubs throughout Europe, Japan, Africa, South America, and the United States. Elena has performed with Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, Kenny Barron, Ambrose Akinmusire, Christian Scott, Orlando “Maraca” Valle, Josh Groban, Common, Future and others.
Most recently, Elena recorded on Herbie Hancocks upcoming album, Childish Gambino's new album "3.15.20," Christian Scott's recent albums, "Ancestral Recall" and "Stretch Music (Introducing Elena Pinderhughes)”, Ambrose Akinmusire’s latest Blue Note album, “The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint,” Common’s album, ”Black America Again,” and Lupe Fiasco’s latest album, “Drogas Wave.” Cited as “the most exciting jazz flautist to have emerged in years” by The Guardian, Elena is currently performing with a range of musicians, as well as with her own group, and playing and touring internationally with Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Common, and Herbie Hancock. She is currently working on her debut album, which showcases her unique voice and flute playing style and brings her musicality, harmony, rhythm, and culture to create a very specific sound all her own.
ABOUT MIT FESTIVAL JAZZ ENSEMBLE
The MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble (MIT FJE) was founded in 1963 by Boston jazz icon Herb Pomeroy and led since 1999 by Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. This advanced 18 to 20-member big band/jazz ensemble is comprised of outstanding MIT undergraduate and graduate students studying a wide range of disciplines. An advanced combo is formed from the membership of the MIT FJE. MIT FJE performs traditional and contemporary jazz ensemble literature, including student compositions and new works written for the MIT FJE by major jazz composers. Improvisation is a prominent part of the MIT FJE experience. MIT FJE has released five professional recordings including its major jazz label debut on Sunnyside in 2015, Infinite Winds, which received a five-star review from DownBeat and was chosen by the magazine as one of its “Best Albums of 2015 Five-Star Masterpieces.”
The FJE has a long history of performing original music by MIT students and composers from around the world. Since 2001, it has presented over 50 world premieres. Among others, Mark Harvey, Herb Pomeroy, Jamshied Sharifi, Ran Blake, John Harbison, Chick Corea, Joe Lovano, Gunther and George Schuller, Kenny Werner, Don Byron, Steve Turre, Magali Souriau, Guillermo Klein, Chris Cheek, Miguel Zenón, Dominique Eade, and Luciana Souza have collaborated with the MIT FJE. In January of 2019 the FJE participated in a highly successful cultural exchange, touring Puerto Rico with Miguel Zenón, presenting concerts in various venues and also STEM workshops in middle and high schools.
Learn about the MIT FJE’s collaboration with Grammy-winner Jacob Collier in this Emmy-winning documentary. Watch the Emmy-nominated documentary The Great Clarinet Summit, featuring MIT FJE. See an overview of MIT FJE’s recent tour of Puerto Rico. Watch MIT FJE and Sean Jones perform an original composition by MIT student Alan Osmundson and Warren Wolf perform Heal! by MIT pianist-composer Peter Godart. MIT FJE participated in MIT's 2021 virtual Commencement, performing Diary of a Pandemic Year. See an overview of MIT FJE’s history here.
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