Pianist

Don’t miss the only Toronto stop of The Bad Plus’s farewell tour! They’ll explore the music of Keith Jarrett with Chris Potter and Craig Taborn.

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The Bad Plus, Chris Potter, and Craig Taborn

Meridian Arts Centre

The Stone Residencies - Nicole Mitchell  Duo

The New School

The supremely inventive Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen, a familiar Bay Area presence from his six-year stint in the SFJAZZ Collective, focuses on new material and music from his newest quartet release for ECM, 2022’s Naked Truth featuring pianist Yonathan Avishai, bassist Barak Mori, and drummer Ziv Ravitz

Double Bill: Avishai Cohen Quartet / Craig Taborn Trio

SFJAZZ Center

Curated by Craig Taborn, “one of the best jazz pianists alive” (The New York Times), this Nightcap offers a window into the evolution of musical language, juxtaposing works by Ravel, Webern, and Scriabin with Taborn’s own compositions.

Kravis Nightcap: Craig Taborn

David Geffen Hall

Chris Potter is a phenomenon on the sax. Whether he is pulling solo angular melody lines out of his sleeve or creating soft harmonies with his ensembles, it is always an impressive performance. At the request of the leading San Francisco Jazz Festival – where Potter since last year has been artistic director-in-residence – he wrote a new work Generations. “A meditation on the links between people through time, and on the relationships between events in the past, present and future,” this is how the saxophonist describes his creation.

Chris Potter: Generations

BOZAR

Music Center De Bijloke

De Doelen

The Stone at The New School serves as an artist-centric home and community for experimental and avant-garde artists, where they can perform what they want without any interference. With concerts every Tuesday through Saturday evening, The Stone at The New School continues the tradition of the landmark non-profit performance space founded in 2005 by Artistic Director John Zorn, within a greatly improved space.

The Stone at The New School Presents: Nicole Mitchell - Duo

Arnhold Hall

Pianist Craig Taborn and cellist Tomeka Reid come together for an evening of avant-garde improvisation in this Stave Sessions concert. Craig Taborn has built a varied career as a leader, a soloist, and a sideman in dozens of bands and has lent his brilliance as an improvisor in any number of musical contexts, from straight-ahead jazz to electro-acoustic sound collage. From units of melody and texture, Taborn builds intricate, fascinating compositions; or, as NPR's jazz critic Kevin Whitehead said, "making spontaneous pieces so clear and shapely, they can sound worked out in advance."

Craig Taborn / Tomeka Reid: Uncommon Prayers Duo

Somerville Theatre

Born in Minnesota, Craig Taborn has been performing piano and electronic music in the jazz, improvisational, and creative music scene for over twenty-five years. In performances and recordings as a soloist, bandleader and sideman, Taborn brings a fearless and sophisticated approach to music-making. He draws from musical traditions as varied as traditional and contemporary jazz, contemporary classical, experimental, electronic, rock, metal, and hip-hop. His constant exploration of genre and style informs his own distinct musical intelligence and voice.

TECTONICS: Craig Taborn

City Halls and Old Fruitmarket

Longtime collaborators in the jazz and improvisational music scene, flutist Nicole Mitchell and pianist Craig Taborn first played together over 20 years ago when Taborn was part of Mitchell’s Sonic Projections ensemble. In 2024, after an inspired performance at a festival where the duo was invited to imagine a legendary but undocumented meeting of Cecil Taylor and Eric Dolphy, they decided to make the duo a regular part of their busy performance schedules. Inspired by the creative spirits of Taylor and Dolphy, the two composer-instrumentalists have created a collection of pieces for the duo that foster and ignite spontaneous musical dialogues and explorations in each performance. Their shared interest in electronic treatments and textures, along with their efforts to expand the possibilities of piano and flute performance, yields a broad, diverse sonic landscape rooted in an intimate musical setting.

TECTONICS: Nicole Mitchell & Craig Taborn

In the process of composing, Naomi Pinnock tapes a collection of images, quotes, and words to the wall behind her desk, describing them as “guideposts… stones to touch for the sometimes blind journey of making.” The work’s title is a quote by Amy Sillman, whose paintings unfold in layers with possibly dozens of other potential paintings beneath the surface—paths not taken, layers covered, a visceral searching for emergent shapes.

Martin Smolka also finds inspiration in the drawings, quotes, and notes kept on his desk. He writes, “I weave various pieces of paper between the strings of the talking drum,” a wooden hourglass-shaped African instrument. Among them is the ancient Seikilos Song: “As long as you're alive, shine, don't be sad at all; life is short, time asks for its due.” Guided by these words and “without censorship by my compositional intellect”, Smolka played freely at his piano, imagining meadows, streams, birds, trees, and clouds, gradually shaping what endured into delicate, mostly quiet orchestral sounds.

The BBC commission and world premiere that ends this concert is written by Nicole Mitchell, a creative flutist, composer, bandleader, and educator. Founder of Black Earth Ensemble, Black Earth Strings, Ice Crystal, and Sonic Projections, Mitchell’s music celebrates African American culture while reaching across genres and integrating new ideas with moments in the legacy of jazz, gospel, experimentalism, pop, and African percussion.

Pianist

Craig Taborn

Events

Upcoming events

May 2, 2026

TECTONICS: Craig Taborn · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

May 3, 2026

TECTONICS: Nicole Mitchell & Craig Taborn · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

May 3, 2026

TECTONICS: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra 2 · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Past events

Mar 5, 2026

The Bad Plus, Chris Potter, and Craig Taborn · TO Live

30 - 31 Jul, 2025

The Stone Residencies - Nicole Mitchell Duo · The New School College of Performing Arts

About

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