East River Jazz Presents: Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra
March 29th, Showtimes 8pm & 9:30pm
Anacostia Arts Center, 1231 Good Hope Rd SE
Tickets: $10 - $15

The evening’s performance presents Middle-Eastern inspired music by the Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra.  The music reflects Marcus’ embrace of his Egyptian heritage which resulted in his 2015 album Blues for Tahrir that portrayed Egypt’s 2011 revolution with a suite of compositions capturing the movement’s different phases.  The performance also includes Marcus’ ongoing efforts with new music, commissioned by a Chamber Music America award, that again integrate influences of Egypt’s classical music into his jazz compositions.

The music features Marcus’ arrangements of original compositions, which offer unique new directions in jazz. “I’ve been interested in incorporating Middle Eastern musical influences, as a way to pull something unique from my culture and fuse it with my music.” Marcusexplains.  “It’s been challenging because jazz and Middle-Eastern music are so different. While jazz uses a lot of rich harmony, Middle-Eastern music tends to be a lot of unison playing or over drones and if you try to add chords, it diminishes the Middle-Eastern feel of the music. So it’s taken a lot of experimenting to find ways to make this fusion of the two musics work.”