Marilyn Crispell

Biography

Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition, and has been a resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at the Creative Music Studio. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers. For ten years she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble and has been a member of the Barry Guy New Orchestra and guest with his London Jazz Composers Orchestra, as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, Quartet Noir (with Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser and Joelle Leandre), and Anders Jormin's Bortom Quintet. In 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada and in 2006 she will be co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz.

Besides working as a soloist and leader of her own groups, Crispell has performed and recorded extensively with well-known players on the American and international jazz scene. She's also performed and recorded music by contemporary composers Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Manfred Niehaus and Anthony Davis (including four performances of his opera "X" with the New York City Opera).

In addition to playing, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers in the U.S., Europe, Canada and New Zealand, and has collaborated with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets.

Crispell has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grants (1988-1989, 1994-1995 and 2006-2007), a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission (1988-1989), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005-2006). In 1996 she was given an Outstanding Alumni Award by the New England Conservatory, and in 2004, was cited as being one of their 100 most outstanding alumni of the past 100 years.

An instructional video/DVD, "A PIANIST'S GUIDE TO FREE IMPROVISATION: KEYS TO UNLOCKING YOUR CREATIVITY," is available from Homespun Tapes, Box 340, Woodstock, N.Y. 12498.
845.246.2550 or 800.33.TAPES

ABOUT AUTOGRAPHS
Thank you for the many kind requests for autographs and autographed photos. Unfortunately, I am unable to continue sending these out at my own expense. If you would like an autographed photo, please download a photo from my website (www.marilyncrispell.com) and send it to me along with a self-addressed stamped return photo envelope if you live in the U.S. If you live overseas, please enclose $4 U.S. for postage, and if you are in Canada, please enclose $2 U.S. for postage.

Thanks very much, Marilyn

WORKSHOPS IN IMPROVISATION

Workshops in improvisation are designed to encourage personal creativity, heighten sound awareness and explore various elements and methods of improvisation. Ways of listening to and relating to each other, the relationship between sound and silence, between improvisation and composition (developing awareness of the logic of a good improvisation), historical perspectives on and examples of improvisation, and the relationship between music and other art forms and disciplines are explored, as well as whatever topics of interest may arise during the workshops. During the workshop/residency period, large group improvisations are structured and may be preformed at the end of the session.

People at any level and of any age are welcome to participate. General workshops (as opposed to workshop with professional musical ensembles) may include those at various levels of musical experience.