Guildhall Jazz Festival: Ari Hoenig Trio

Lior Solomons-Wise (piano)

Cubby Howard (cello)

Finn Genockey (drums)

Lorenzo Morabito (double bass)

Ewan Parkin (trumpet)

Pianist Lior Solomons-Wise presents his quintet, an exciting line-up of piano, trumpet, cello, double bass, and drum kit. Lior’s compositions draw inspiration from the rich legacy of classic ECM records, while also referencing elements of folk and classical music. The group’s sound is characterized by a rich interplay between cello, trumpet and piano trio, exploring a distinctive and compelling sound world.

Silvia Leonzio vocals
Cody Moss piano
Menelik Claffey double bass
Anmol Mohara drums

Silvia Leonzio is a London-based jazz vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser from Lithuania. With diverse musical backgrounds, she composes music that draws influence from various genres such as modern jazz, folk, gospel, world music and free jazz. Leonzio frequently experiments with her voice and consistently pushes the boundaries of the traditional vocal role within the band. She has garnered comparisons to artists such as Bjork and Esperanza Spalding.

Nestor Vassilakis tenor saxophone
Jakub Klimiuk guitar
Joe Game piano
James Leaver-Whitfield bass
David Harkness drums

A set of both early and newer music with a mixture of standards and originals, played by a tight-knit group of Guildhall students.

Benjy Sandler reeds
Julian Woods guitars
Oren Marshall tuba
Cubby Howard cello
Corrie Dick drums

Guildhall postgraduate students Benjy Sandler and Julian Woods have been united by their interest in the work of the great American improviser Henry Threadgill. Bringing together the same instrumental lineup of Threadgill’s celebrated group Zooid, the quintet will explore music by Threadgill as well as their own original compositions, which feature a wide variety of influences from Ben Johnston’s string quartets in Just Intonation, to Charles Ives’s piano works, to delta blues great Robert Johnson and guitar hero Jimi Hendrix, to eclectic avant-garde icon John Zorn.

Jan Halen’s one-woman violin show entrances audiences with the magic of live looping. Performing original compositions from her two albums as well as unreleased material, Jan Halen’s loops invite you to watch as individual phrases unfold and evolve into an electronic symphony of cinematic atmosphere.

Marlon Hibbert steelpan
Will Hobson piano

Marlon Hibbert and William Hobson are a steelpan and piano duo, recently graduated from Guildhall School. Playing a mixed repertoire of standards, Caribbean and Latin music, the duo aspires to the likes of the Gary Burton and Chick Corea duet.

Marlon is an aspiring Jazz musician, Educator and performer born in London. With 15 years of experience performing in the UK, USA, Trinidad, Switzerland, Slovakia and more, he aims to continue to take the instrument around the world and demonstrate the artform. Marlon regularly performs an array of music from all genres. He is also the UK Pan Clash champion soloist 2018 & 2019. Marlon arranged his first panorama in 2015, winning his first Junior Panorama with Endurance Steel Orchestra in 2018.

Will Hobson is a versatile and forward-thinking young pianist/composer based in London. At 23 years old, his artistic voice draws on a wide range of influences, where a deep knowledge of the jazz idiom meets minimalist inspired cells, elements of ambient sound design and catchy earworm melodies.

Will has performed extensively across the country, particularly in Essex and London. Most notably he has had the opportunity to play at some of the capital’s most renowned jazz clubs including Ronnie Scott’s, Oliver’s and The Vortex, as well as having provided piano for world-famous hotels such as The Dorchester and The Savoy. In addition to this, he works regularly with a variety of bands and solo acts, including The VV Experience, Chisara Agor and The Unswung Heroes.

Will Jutton bass/vocals
Charlie Ralph guitar
Dave Wyatt alto saxophone
Cubby Howard cello
Kuljit Bhamra tabla

Will Jutton is a bass player and vocalist in his third year at Guildhall. The group blends instruments – tabla, guitar, cello – and traditional music including Indian classical, jazz, and folk, to create a unique and exciting sound.

Bea Asurmendi vocals
Giovanni Cresseri electric bass/double bass
Milena Granci piano
Gianluca Corona guitar
Filippo Galli drums

Bea Asurmendi is an up-and-coming vocalist and composer, born in the Basque Country and active in London’s live music scene. She completed her Masters in Jazz Singing at Guildhall School where she had the opportunity to work with, among others, legendary jazz vocalist Norma Winstone and the internationally acclaimed jazz vocal group New York Voices. Throughout her music career she has worked with many projects and artists, and has performed in renowned venues such as The Jazz Cafe, Ronnie Scott's, Pizza Express Jazz Club, 606 Club and Victoria Eugenia Theatre (Spain), just to mention a few. She recently performed as a guest artist on Judit Neddermann’s Basque Country tour. She has also collaborated with Latin Grammy Award-winner and film composer Fernando Velázquez, taking part in various international movie and theatre soundtracks.

Ari Hoenig is a jazz drummer, composer, and educator known for his unusual and intense approach to drumming emphasizing complex rhythms in direct harmony with other group members. Ari is widely noted particularly for his drumming not being relegated to just keeping tempo, or being a side issue to the music he plays in, but rather for elevating drumming as an indispensable part of the performance.

Born on November 13, 1973 in Philadelphia, Ari Hoenig, was exposed at an early age to a variety of musical experiences. His father is a conductor and classical singer, his mother a violinist and pianist. Accordingly, at 4 years of age, Ari began studying the violin and piano. He began playing drums at age twelve, and by age fourteen he was honing his skills with other young jazz musicians at Philly clubs such as Ortlieb’s JazzHaus.

After attending the prestigious University of North Texas for three years, Ari transferred to William Patterson College in northern New Jersey. He soon found himself playing for legendary Philadelphia organist Shirley Scott and working regularly in New York City.

Shortly thereafter, Ari moved into Brooklyn and began playing extensively with a variety of groups, including Jean Michel Pilc Trio, Kenny Werner Trio, Chris Potter Underground, Kurt Rosenwinkel Group, Joshua Redman Elastic band, Jazz Mandolin Project and bands led by Wayne Krantz, Mike Stern, Richard Bona and Pat Martino.

Both of Ari's self-produced solo drum CDs, "Time Travels" (2000) and "The Life Of A Day" (2002), document his exploratory nature and they represent an ambitious tribute to the melodic possibilities of the drum set. Today, Ari continues to build on the concepts of these two records by playing largely improvised solo concerts using a simple four-piece drum kit without help from extraneous percussion instruments.

The Ari Hoenig Quartet was formed at the end of 2002 while playing every Monday night at the New York Village jazz club Fat Cat. The band featured Jacques Schwarz-Bart on tenor sax, Jean Michel Pilc on piano, and Matt Penman on bass. They released two records on the Smalls Records label: "The Painter" (2004) and the DVD "Kinetic Hues" (2005)

In 2006 Ari signed a multi-record deal with Dreyfus Records and released his first record for them called “Inversations" (2006) which features the trio of Jean Michel Pilc and Johannes Weidenmueller. “Bert’s Playground” (2008), Ari’s second record for Dreyfus, features Ari’s Punk Bop Band joined by Chris Potter. Highlights of this record include Chris’s solo on Moments Notice and Ari jumping around in red pants on the cover. Jonathan Kreisberg, Matt Penman, Will Vinson, Gilad Hekselman and Orlando le Fleming also represent on this one.

His next record project was for “Smalls Live”, a record label set up in 2009 to document some of the music being performed at the “Smalls Jazz Club” in New York where Ari has appeared regularly since 2003. Ari chose his Punk Bop Band to make the live record “Punk Bop Live at Smalls (2010)”. The Punk Bop Band features Will Vinson on alto, Jonathan Kreisberg on guitar and fellow Jazz Mandolin Project alumni, Danton Boller on bass. Tigran Hamasyan is a special guest on 4 tracks as well.

Ari's Quartet with Tigran Hamasyan, Gilad Hekselman, Orlando le Fleming and Chris Tordini released “Lines of Oppression” (2011) on the Naïve label.

In 2013 Ari and his quartet won the prestigious BMW Welt (World) award in Munich, an international competition for best band lead by a drummer.