Show: 8:00pm
Tickets: $20/PWYC
This unnamed-as-of-yet ensemble is a classic case of 3 musicians meeting that just works.
Presenting ensembles, projects and premiers in Jazz, Creative Music and Contemporary Classical circles, Alex Fournier is a double bassist with an interest pursuing his instrument’s idioms completely. Alex began his musical studies at the University of Toronto under such Canadian masters as Dave Young, Andrew Downing and Jim Vivian. As well, he began studying composition under Andrew Downing and Phil Nimmons, graduating with a Bachelor of Music with honors in 2011. Alex later attended both the Banff Creative Music Workshop and the SIM Workshop in 2013, leading him to a position in the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory’s Jazz Performance program. Alex has studied both performance and composition under Michael Formanek, as well as Paul Johnson for classical performance, while performing in multiple classic and contemporary jazz ensembles, various classical chamber groups, orchestras and solo performances and presenting multiple concerts and initiatives featuring a hybrid of composed and improvised music. Alex graduated with a Graduate Performance Diploma in Jazz Performance in May of 2016.
Currently based in Toronto Ontario, Alex presents multiple groups, series and initiatives. Among his projects is his main vehicle, Triio, which features episodic compositions that focus on the interplay and mutual influence shared between written music and free/collective improvisation, creating the effect of a “living score”. Triio released its first album in 2019, and it’s second release, Six-ish Plateaus, in late summer of 2022 both to wide critical acclaim. Alex makes up one third of the collective, Money House, which focuses on original compositions and sketches which draw influence from the writing of many of the bebop and post-bop piano trios of the 1950s and 60s. Money House’s first album, Jazz and Financial Solutions, will see its release in late 2022. As well, Alex contributes to the group Huet//Fournier//Kuhl, a collective focused on free and textural improvisation, featuring performers Edwin Huet on electronics and live processing, and Mike Kuhl on drums and percussion. They released their first album, Rarefied Air, in early 2020. Alex also acts as a sideman in several other projects, such as an “impossibly hard music” group Bearrah Fawcett, a semi-modular group, The Dan Pitt Trio and Quintet, and a group dedicated exclusively to free improvisation, Pineapple. Alex also hosts his own performance/writer’s workshop series help of collaborator, Patrick O’Reilly. Furniture Music takes the form of both monthly installments of curated performances by improvising artists of any discipline from Toronto and beyond, as well as a writers workshop featuring a rotating panel of musicians who perform incomplete pieces, sketches and graphic scores brought in live while offering commentary on the directions that the score can be taken in.
Mark Hundevad is a drummer, vibraphonist, pianist and composer and has been an active member of the Canadian music scene for 40 years.
Some highlights include studying and performing with legendary Kyoto Award winning jazz innovator Cecil Taylor in 1985 and most recently performing with legendary r&b/funk bassist Nathan Watts who has been Stevie Wonder’s bassist and musical director since 1974 as well as working with Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Gladys Knight, The Pointer Sisters and Diana Ross.
From the mid 90’s until early 2000 Mark led the avant garde jazz ensemble Spiritual Alignment which featured Cecil Taylor’s sidemen Raphe Malik, Glenn Spearman and Sabir Mateen.
It was also in the mid 90’s when he began a long musical association with American jazz bassist Juini Booth. Juini was the bassist for some of the greatest jazz musicians in history including the Sun Ra Arkestra, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, McCoy Tyner,, and Albert Ayler among many others.
As a teenager Mark won 1st place at the Canadian National Stage Band Festival for his vibraphone/piano duet with pianist Miles Black, performed for Queen Elizabeth and won a full scholarship to the prestigious Banff School of Fine Arts where he studied with Miles Davis’ sidemen Dave Holland and Dave Liebman.
In 1988 Mark co-founded the jazz scene at Toronto’s Rex Hotel with fellow musicians Jim Heineman and John T Davis with a 2 1/2 year house gig that turned the club into what it is today.
From 2001-2020 he was working weekly at N’Awlins Jazz Bar in Toronto as a member of the Jim Heineman Quartet which featured pianist Stacie McGregor.
