Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones (USA)
Elder Ones is the vehicle for the musical vision of composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, Amirtha Kidambi. This extraordinary singer is classically trained with the capacity to perform demanding 20thCentury modernist repertoire. However, the music of Elder Ones is likewise informed by, for example, John and Alice Coltrane, her study of Carnatic music, and her work with Darius Jones (with whom she will also perform as a duo during the festival). The group’s first record, Holy Science, features wordless compositions, a gamut of beguiling vocal expression that, with the deft and synthetic improvisations of bandmates Matt Nelson (saxophone), Nick Dunston (double bass), and Max Jaffe (drums, sensory percussion), swirls and intensifies in ways that are, by turns, trancelike and ecstatic. Her new compositions interleave lyrics on themes of political resistance, a most powerful invocation to reflection and action during these troubling times, and which embody the ironclad sense of purpose that underpins Kidambi’s singular music.
Thursday, 13 September, 8pm, Cooperators Hall, River Run Centre (on a bill with the Nick Fraser Quartet), $25/$20
Amirtha Kidambi website
Holy Science on Bandcamp
See also Darius Jones & Amirtha Kidambi