Mobile since her birth in Singapore, composer, saxophonist, and artivist Caroline Davis’s music covers a wide range of styles, owed to her shifting environment as a child. As a leader, she has released six albums: Live Work & Play (2012), Doors: Chicago Storylines (2015), Heart Tonic (2018), Alula (2019), Anthems (2019), and Portals (2021). She won Downbeat’s Critic’s Poll Rising Star Alto-Saxophonist (2018) and was listed in Downbeat’s Readers Poll (2021). Her work has garnered much praise from NPR, The New York Times, The Wire, DownBeat, JazzTimes, and many international publications.
Davis is active as both a side-person and a leader in a diverse set of music communities (jazz, improvised music, modern classical, R&B, folk). Davis has worked with Lee Konitz, Angelica Sanchez, The Femme Jam, Matt Mitchell, Terry Riley, Miles Okazaki, Thana Alexa, and Billy Kaye, to name a few. Her collaborations include My Tree (with Ben Hoffmann) and Persona (with Rob Clearfield).
Awards and recognitions over the years have placed Caroline in various mentorship communities: IAJE’s Sisters in Jazz (2006), the Kennedy Center’s Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program (2011), and Jen Shyu/Sara Serpa’s Mutual Mentorship Program (2020). Davis was the recipient of CMA's Performance Plus Grant (2021), NYFA's City Artist Corps Grant (2021), Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2019-2020); and she has participated in several residency programs, including fellow-in-residence at The Jazz Gallery (2022) and composer-in-residence at MacDowell (2019). Her compositional practice integrates music with the cognitive sciences, anatomical structures, and the brain, influenced by her Ph.D in Music Cognition. Davis is an advocate for social justice in the realm of gender (developed in a co-taught Jazz & Gender course at The New School) as well as in the abolitionist movement (Justice for Keith Lamar).
As an educator, Caroline brings her unique knowledge of music and psychology to her teaching. She has been on the faculty at Litchfield Jazz Camp for 15 years, Stanford Jazz Institute for 6 years, and an educator at The New School, Northwestern University, Harvard University, DePaul University, Columbia College, University of Texas at Arlington, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, to name a few.
Forbes Graham is a composer, musician, sound artist, and visual artist whose work explores themes of simultaneity, perceptibility, transformation and collage. He lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.
Steve Cady lives in Keene, NH and performs with professional groups throughout New England. Highlights of Steve’s playing career as a bassist include performances with The “Rat Pack is Back” and “The Crooner and the Dame” Vegas Reviews, Joan Rivers Comedy Act, The Scott Mullett Trio, The Montreal Jazz Festival, Raylynmore Opera, Keene Chamber Orchestra, Keene Jazz Orchestra, Windham Orchestra, with The Opera Theatre of Weston, and at the Palace Theater in Manchester NH, where he is house bassist. Steve holds a BM and a BA from Keene State College, where he was a freshman talent-scholar and KSC Instrumentalist of the Year in 2002. Steve has been a performer in several world premiers by New Hampshire composer Ted Mann, and has completed his own major compositions for jazz ensemble, dance accompaniment and solo bass. Steve has been teaching music at Vermont Academy in Saxtons River, VT since 2002, where he directs Jazz and Chamber Ensembles, teaches Music Theory, Music Appreciation, and Electronic Music. In addition to teaching double-bass at The Brattleboro Music Center, Steve teaches bass methods at Keene State College, and teaches private electric and double-bass students in Keene. Steve enjoys studying improvisation, electronic music, mountain biking, and sailing with his wife.
Doors open at 7pm, and music will begin at 730.