This month brings with it a new Julián and Friends, highlighting the music of featured artist Qiujiang Levi Lu.
The Julián and Friends composers showcase, created to celebrate and serve as a platform for young composers-instrumentalists, is in its second year at the Jazz Showcase. Each monthly presentation seeks to expand the intergenerational conversation of Black American Music with experimental and forward thinking original programs.
Julián Pujols Quall
A Dominican-American pianist and composer from Chicago, Julián´s journey started with the Caribbean rhythms of their childhood. A classically trained artist, their work found a home in jazz performance, improvisation, and collaboration.
Julián is a recent Jazz Performance graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, where they studied with Warren Wolf as a recipient of the Merit School of Music's Alice S. Pfaelzer Tuition-Free Conservatory Blue Ribbon Scholarship. As a solo pianist they have studied at the Aspen Music Festival, Gijón Piano Festival, Brevard Music Festival and Colburn Piano Festival.
As a founding member of the Peabody Improvisers Collective Julián developed experimental collaborative programs and has been creating and performing improvisational music for ballet, modern and West-African dance programs in Baltimore and Chicago for the last three years. In addition to Julián and Friends, they formed Mamey, a music project that seeks to deepen the understanding of the influence the Caribbean arts have had in their musical creative journey and to honor beautiful Dominican traditions and cultural resilience, as they strive to promote new and vibrant art.
Qiujiang Levi Lu/卢秋江
A Beijing-born, New Jersey-based performer, experimental vocalist, composer, Lu is a certified foodie. As an improvising performer, they utilize custom-built feedback-driven electronic instruments, voice, and amplified muscle movements to perform in various settings. Other than performing, Lu also writes for acoustic and electronic improvisers. Through using sound-canceling headphones and in-ear monitors, Lu creates surreal listening environments for improvisers to explore human relationships, audio-visual interactivity, and the phenomenology of sound.
After graduating with a Master of Music in Computer Music from Peabody Institute in May 2023, Lu now works as a lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Pennsylvania.
TICKETS
General Admission $20
VIP $30
Student Tickets $15
Available at the door ONLY with valid student ID
