Live Jazz at The Bridge and Tunnel Gallery! 💥 We are thrilled to invite you to our first live music performance by @amirelsaffar_official at @thebridge_tunnel on Friday August 27th. Please join us for this amazing performance that will feature ElSaffar on trumpet, santur, voice, and modular synthesizer. Door will be open by 7 pm! Composer, trumpeter, santur player, and vocalist Amir ElSaffar has been described as “uniquely poised to reconcile jazz and Arabic music,” (the Wire) and “one of the most promising figures in jazz today” (Chicago Tribune). ElSaffar is an expert trumpeter with a classical background, conversant not only in the language of contemporary jazz, but has created techniques to play microtones and ornaments idiomatic to Arabic music that are not typically heard on the trumpet.

Additionally, he is a purveyor of the centuries old, now endangered, Iraqi maqam tradition, which he performs actively as a vocalist and santur player. As a composer, ElSaffar has used the subtle microtones found in Iraqi maqam music to create an innovative approach to harmony and melody, and has received commissions to compose for large and small jazz ensembles, traditional Middle Eastern ensembles, chamber orchestras, string quartets, and contemporary music ensembles, as well as dance troupes.

Described as “an imaginative bandleader, expanding the vocabulary of the trumpet and at the same time the modern jazz ensemble,” (All About Jazz), ElSaffar is an important voice in an age of cross-cultural music making. He has received commissions from the MAP Fund, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), French Ministry of Culture, Newport Jazz Festival, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chamber Music America, Jazz Institute of Chicago, and was composer-in-residence at the Royaumont Foundation in France in 2017-2019. ElSaffar is a recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, US Artist Fellowship, and Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University. . . . #thebridgeandtunnelgallery#liveperformance #jazzimprovisation#jazzmusic #amirelsaffar #artgallery#artist #musicperformance#trumpetplayer