NATE WOOLEY

« Columbia Icefield »

USA
CANADIAN PREMIERE

SUNDAY MAY 19   
CARRÉ 150 (Cabaret Guy-Aubert)
3 pm - $32  

Nate Wooley : trompette, compositions
Susan Alcorn : guitare pedal-steel
Ava Mendoza : guitare électrique
Ryan Sawyer : batterie

Trumpeter and composer NATE WOOLEY is one of contemporary music’s most distinctive conceptualists. An improviser of the highest calibre, his compositional projects are richly conceived, sometimes reflecting on and responding to the monumental and the ineffable. « Columbia Icefield » is just such a project; the 2019 recording (Northern Spy Records) is a program-length composition that evokes the wonder of Canada’s great glacier. It features moments of tone-poem poignancy that capture some of WOOLEY’s most lyrical Harmon mute playing and other episodes of ferocious ensemble improvisation, with twinned guitars to the fore. While « Columbia Icefield » was originally conceived as a composition (and not as a band per se), the special sound-world its players –– SUSAN ALCORN (pedal-steel guitar), AVA MENDOZA (guitar), and RYAN SAWYER (drums) –– generate have inspired WOOLEY to write anew for the quartet. We are delighted to find out what he has in store.