January 18, 2027
FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP…

ABOUT

“Flower In a Stained Glass Window,” is one of William Parker’s deeply affecting works brought forth by the essence of Dr. Martin Luther King. Here, the vision is of MLK as a seminary student, looking through a stained-glass window, hearing the words of Mahatma Gandhi, Henry Stephens Salt and Henry David Thoreau; the message being social and political justice and equality for all human beings. Imagine it is April 4,1968. A dying Dr. King’s spirit leaves his body. On the way home, it encounters Tasunke Witko the Lakota Sioux leader who was rushing to the scene to bring Dr. King back to life through music, sounds, and movement. Instead of reminiscing about the past they talk about how revolution must come from within. Freedom cannot be handed out. It is already inside of us. 

Parker has pulled together a characteristically large-tent group of idiosyncratic performers ranging from the operatic singers Alicia Hall Moran and AnnMarie Sandy to Argentinian drummer Juan Pablo Carletti to veteran New York singer & sound artist Ellen Christi to Cuban trumpeter Diego Hedez. His cast of musical associates will bring "Flower.." and other works for Dr. King to life in an extended and mixed program including interludes of spoken word, poetry and small and large ensembles. 

WILLIAM PARKER

A composer, bassist and multi-instrumentalist, an author and educator who has recorded over 40 albums as a leader that feature a range of concepts, and ensembles from solo bass, quartets, sextets, large ensembles such as the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, as well as special projects such as The Essence Of Ellington and The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield. He has composed music for The Wroclaw Symphony Orchestra as well as host of commissions by large and small ensembles.  He has composed music and librettos for numerous multi-media operas such as Trail of Tears, Vision Peace and Battle Cries, Mass for the Healing World in addition to hundreds of pieces of vocal music. All of Parker’s music incorporates his concept of Universal Tonality. They all include improvisational languages and possibilities. 

Alicia Hall Moran

Mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran performs and composes across opera, art, theater, and jazz. She made her Broadway debut in the Tony-winning Porgy and Bess revival, starring as Bess on its 20-city tour. Her collaborators include Carrie Mae Weems, Bill T. Jones, Bill Frisell, and Charles Lloyd, and she has been commissioned by MoMA, The Kitchen, and Prototype Festival. Her works include Breaking Ice: The Battle of the Carmens and Black Wall Street, on the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. With husband Jason Moran, she received a 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change fellowship and has made work for the Venice and Whitney biennials.

AnnMarie Sandy

Mezzo-soprano AnnMarie Sandy has garnered praise for her operatic, concert, and recorded work. Raised in Houston and based in Harlem, she is featured on the New World Records recording of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, and appears in 2026 with the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra on PBS Great Performances’ “Everyone Loves Joplin.”  Her credits include Central City Opera’s world premiere of Gabriel’s Daughter, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Porgy and Bess, and Morningside Opera’s Off Broadway ¡Figaro! (90210). She made her Lincoln Center debut in Beethoven’s Ninth and her Carnegie Hall debut in Strauss’s Feuersnot with the American Symphony Orchestra, returning in 2025 for Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony.  A longtime collaborator of bassist William Parker, she is featured on his triple album Voices Fall from the Sky, which PopMatters called his “album of a lifetime.” 

Juan Pablo Carletti

Juan Pablo Carletti was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He grew up in a musical environment in which his father played percussion, and Juan was instantly drawn to the drums. As he performed with a variety of bands, he focused mainly on improvised music and mainstream jazz. He began working with his own projects and created a small label dedicated to new music. In 2006, Juan moved to New York City, where met influential musicians such as Mat Maneri, Tony Malaby, Mark Helias, Nasheet Waits, and Gerald Cleaver.  He has also participated in ensembles led by William Parker including In Order to Survive, teaches art and music to young people, and continues to expand his palette by incorporating instruments such as the bombo leguero from his native Argentina.

gabby fluke-mogul

gabby fluke-mogul is an improviser, composer, facilitator, organizer, and doula based in New York. Weaving within threads of the avant garde, experimental, and free jazz continuums, their praxis is devotional, somatic, and uncompromisingly queer. fluke-mogul's playing has been described as "embodied, visceral, and virtuosic" and "the most striking sound in improvised music in years." gfm holds a BA in Music and Early Childhood Education from Hampshire College, a MFA in Music Performance and Literature from Mills College, a Deep Listening Certificate from the Deep Listening Institute at RPI, and additional certificates in birth and postpartum work with support from financial aid and scholarship. ​gabby is Executive Director of Creative Music Studio (New York) curating concert and workshop programming, fostering non-profit partnerships, and supporting diverse voices in the continuum of creative music.

James Brandon Lewis

James Brandon Lewis is a saxophonist, composer, and writer whose work spans music, poetry, visual art, and scholarship. Born in Buffalo and based in New York, he is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow and DownBeat’s 2025 Critics Poll Artist of the Year and Tenor Saxophonist of the Year.  Lewis leads a trio, a quartet, and Red Lily Quintet, whose Jesup Wagon was DownBeat’s 2022 Album of the Year. His 2026 releases include Deface the Currency with the Messthetics, These Are Soulful Days with the Lutoslawski Quartet, his quartet’s Omni, and Red Lily’s Dvořák tribute Calling Antonín.  He has performed with William Parker, Marc Ribot, Nicole Mitchell, and Ravi Coltrane at venues from Newport to the Village Vanguard.  He earned a PhD in Creativity from Rowan University, and his interdisciplinary work has reached MOCA, Hauser & Wirth, the California African American Museum, and the Basquiat exhibition Seeing Loud.

Taylor-Ho Bynum

Taylor Ho Bynum is a cornetist, composer, writer, and educator whose expressionistic playing and idiosyncratic improvising are documented on more than twenty recordings as a leader and over a hundred as a sideperson. His two decades with Anthony Braxton rank among the most generative partnerships of Braxton’s career, and as executive director of the Tri-Centric Foundation (2010-2018) he produced two Trillium operas, Sonic Genome performances, festivals, and box sets. He also worked closely with Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor. From 2004 to 2019 he led an ensemble that grew from Sextet to 15-piece PlusTet, anchored by Mary Halvorson and Tomas Fujiwara, recording largely for Firehouse 12, the label he co-founded. He now plays in a duo with Fujiwara, the collectives Illegal Crowns and Geometry, and Tomeka Reid’s Stringtet and Septet. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and The Baffler, and since 2017 he has directed the jazz program at Dartmouth College.

Steve Swell

Trombonist Steve Swell has been part of New York’s music community since 1975. His range spans tours and recordings with Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich and collaborations with Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, and William Parker. He has more than 50 albums as leader or co-leader and appears on over 125 others.  Swell leads workshops worldwide and is a teaching artist with the American Composers Orchestra, the Jazz Foundation of America, Healing Arts Initiative, and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, with a focus on special-needs children. His grants include Jazz Road Tours and LMCC awards.

Tongo Eisen-Martin

Born in San Francisco and educated at Columbia University, Tongo Eisen-Martin has authored works that have received the 2018 American Book Award, a 2018 California Book Award, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Griffin International Poetry Prize. Eisen-Martin is also an educator and organizer whose work centers on issues of mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings of Black people, and human rights. He has taught at detention centers around the country and at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. He lives in San Francisco.

Ellen Christi

Ellen Christi is a composer and vocalist who has shaped improvised music since the mid-1970s. She arrived in New York as the downtown loft scene took hold, co-founding the New York City Artists’ Collective at 501 Canal Street, where she lived and performed with Ray Anderson, David S. Ware, Dave Burrell and Cooper-Moore. She studied with Jaki Byard and Jeanne Lee and founded Network Records. Her collaborators include Andrew Cyrille, Reggie Workman, Rashied Ali, Ed Blackwell, William Parker, Butch Morris and Kenny Wheeler, plus partners in Italy and Switzerland. Her commissions include one from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust.

Eri Yamamoto

Osaka-born pianist and composer Eri Yamamoto moved to New York in 1995 after hearing Tommy Flanagan, studying at the New School with Reggie Workman and Junior Mance. In 1998 her trio began a twenty-year run at Arthur’s Tavern in Greenwich Village. Herbie Hancock has said “already she’s found her own voice.” Her seventeen albums as a leader include A Woman With a Purple Wig, praised by The New Yorker, and Firefly, which earned four stars from DownBeat. A longtime member of William Parker’s groups, she also leads Colors of the Night with Parker and drummer Ikuo Takeuchi.

Diego Hedez

Trumpeter and composer Diego Hedez (Diego Miguel Hernández González) was born in 2000 in Remedios, Villa Clara, Cuba, and began studying music at nine. At Cuba’s National School of Arts he studied with trumpeter Roberto García, who opened him up to jazz, bebop and rumba. He led his own ensemble, Afro Cubanos, and played in the ENA Jazz Band and Joaquín Betancourt’s Joven Jazz Band, sharing stages with Dave Weckl and Brian Lynch. Mentorship from Kervin Barreto of Calle 13 helped him build a name in Havana clubs like La Zorra y el Cuervo, and his quintet debut, Distante, followed. After a 2022 residency in Sutri, Italy, recording with Francisco Mela and Federico Ughi, he moved to the U.S. in 2023 and attended SIM under Ralph Alessi. He now works with William Parker, David Virelles, Immanuel Wilkins and Daniel Carter, and leads The New Latin Jazz Collective.

Isaiah Parker