Guest Collaborators​

ASZURE BARTON (Choreographer, She/Her) has been creating dances for as long as she can remember. Her works have been performed on stages worldwide as well as in museums and exhibits. She has choreographed for film, opera, and theater, including Broadway. Early in her career, she founded her own project, Aszure Barton & Artists, in order to create an interdisciplinary and collaborative platform for process-centered creation, resulting in choreography that the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts has equated to “watching the physical unfurling of the human psyche.” Barton has worked with artists and companies including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jessica Chastain, Misty Copeland, Cyndi Lauper, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Nederlands Dans Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Martha Graham Dance Company, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Hamburg Ballett, Teatro alla Scala, among others. Barton recently premiered an evening-length work for San Francisco Ballet in collaboration with British music producer/DJ Floating Points, media artists Hamill Industries, and designer Michelle Jank. Barton is the current Resident Artist at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and was a longtime artist in residence at Baryshnikov Arts. Her latest venture is a collaboration with award-winning composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire; the two have created four works together to date. Their revered work, A a | a B : B E N D, will be touring internationally through upcoming seasons. Barton is a Bessie Awardee, a recipient of the prestigious Arts & Letters award, and Ambassador of contemporary choreography in Canada. As an educator, Aszure collaborates regularly with institutions including The Juilliard School and Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE (Composer, He/Him) Described by NPR Music as “a trumpeter of deep expressive resources and a composer of kaleidoscopic vision,” Ambrose Akinmusire has made a home at the crossroads of different musical forms and languages, from post-bop and avant-garde jazz to contemporary chamber music and hip-hop to singer-songwriter aesthetics. He began recording for Blue Note in 2011, earning widespread acclaim for his albums when the heart emerges glistening (produced by Jason Moran), the imagined savior is far easier to paint (“gorgeous, moving” – JazzTimes), A Rift in Decorum: Live at the Village Vanguard (“amazingly effective” – DownBeat), Origami Harvest (Top Albums of 2018, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times), and on the tender spot of every calloused moment (2021 GRAMMY) nominee, Best Jazz Instrumental Album).

Akinmusire has also received numerous prestigious composer commissions; created music for film and television projects including the new Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal series “Blindspotting”; appeared as a featured soloist with the legendary artists Archie Shepp and Roscoe Mitchell; and made signal contributions to groundbreaking albums including Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, Brad Mehldau’s Finding Gabriel and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (on the closing track “Mortal Man”). He also played on Joni Mitchell’s 2014 release Love Has Many Faces, and in 2018 accompanied Chaka Khan, James Taylor and other luminaries honoring Mitchell in a gala concert documented on Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration. Other sideman highlights include Jack DeJohnette, Marcus Miller, Steve Coleman Terri Lyne Carrington, and many others. Akinmusire received his 2nd GRAMMY nomination, this time for “Best Improvised Solo” on Carrington’s 2022 release, New Standards Vol 1