Venue: Chapelle des Hospitalières (209 avenue des Pins, Montréal, QC H2W 2T2) Date: October 1, 2026 Doors: 7:00 PM Music: 8:30 PM
Tickets: $20 in advance / $25 at the door NOTAFLOF
Advance Tickets: TBC
Facebook Event: TBC
Drummer Tomas Fujiwara and guitarist Mary Halvorson have been collaborating for almost 20 years. They met in New York City in the early 2000’s, and first started playing together in cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum’s sextet. Since then they have become each other’s most frequent collaborators, working together in a myriad of projects led by Michael Formanek, Adam O’Farrill, Matana Roberts, Tomeka Reid, Ben Goldberg, Mike Reed and others. Fujiwara is also a part of Halvorson’s Code Girl and Amaryllis, and Halvorson is a member of Fujiwara’s bands Triple Double and The Hook Up. Their duo project showcases a new book of music built on years of history and collaboration in a stripped down setting.
Guitarist, composer and MacArthur fellow Mary Halvorson has been described as “a singular talent” (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes), ”NYC’s least-predictable improviser” (Howard Mandel, City Arts), “one of the most original jazz guitarists of our time” (Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily), and “one of today’s most formidable bandleaders” (Francis Davis, Village Voice). In recent Downbeat Critics Polls she has been celebrated as guitarist, rising star jazz artist, and rising star composer of the year. Halvorson’s most recent release, Cloudward (Nonesuch Records, 2024), features her Amaryllis sextet, with Adam O’Farrill (trumpet), Jacob Garchik (trombone), Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums), along with special guest Laurie Anderson (violin) on one track. In a 9/10 review by PopMatters’ Chris Ingalls, the album was described as “a shimmering, deeply satisfying example of a jazz sextet firing on all cylinders. Prepare to be astonished.” Halvorson is also part of several collaborative projects, most notably the longstanding trio Thumbscrew, with Michael Formanek on bass and Tomas Fujiwara on drums. Over the past two decades she has worked with such diverse musicians as Tim Berne, Anthony Braxton, Taylor Ho Bynum, John Dieterich, Trevor Dunn, Bill Frisell, Ingrid Laubrock, Myra Melford, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, Tom Rainey, Jessica Pavone, Tomeka Reid, Marc Ribot, Ches Smith and John Zorn.
Brooklyn-based Tomas Fujiwara is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation. He leads the bands Triple Double, 7 Poets Trio, and Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up; has a collaborative duo with Taylor Ho Bynum; is a member of the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Mary Halvorson and Michael Formanek); and engages in a diversity of creative work with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Mary Halvorson, Tomeka Reid, Matana Roberts, Nicole Mitchell, Ben Goldberg, Amir ElSaffar, Benoit Delbecq, and many others. In 2021, he won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Drummer, and premiered two suites of new music as part of his Roulette Residency: “You Don’t Have to Try” (with Meshell Ndegeocello) and “Shizuko.” “Drummer Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever shifting. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint…A conception of the drum set as a full-canvas instrument, almost orchestral in its scope.” (New York Times)
Stretching the Unison is a conceptual music project featuring four reed instrumentalists who explore the boundaries of unison and collective listening. The ensemble performs compositions that challenge traditional notions of togetherness, relying on intuition and subtle rhythmic shifts. Musicians face each other in the center of the space, focusing on tonal blend and group dynamics, while the audience surrounds them, witnessing the unfolding musical process. The project invites listeners to engage with attentive, intuitive play and reconsider their role in the act of listening. Stretching the Unison was conceived by Adam Kinner and premiered in September 2024.
Montreal bassist and composer Nicolas Caloia presents el sonido se aleja de nosotros (the sound moves away from us), a new quartet for four double basses begun during a 2025 visit to Mexico City. Inspired by the radical musical thought of early 20th-century Mexican composer Julián Carrillo, the work retunes the four basses according to one another’s natural harmonics, creating a microtonal landscape rooted in just intonation. Its rhythms emerge from the musicians’ individual interpretations of phrases drawn from Carrillo’s theoretical writings, bringing rigorous compositional procedure into dialogue with poetic intuition and collective expression.