The Solos & Duos Series, produced by the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, concludes its 8th season with a solo concert by drummer and pianist Tyshawn Sorey.

“The enigma that is Tyshawn Sorey: while most young drummers are walking in the footsteps of the elders and the influences of the mainstream,” writes Mark F Turner, “Sorey thrives on the outside, composing and performing free improvised music, leading experimental groups such as Oblique, or doing stints with progressives like Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman and Steve Coleman. His debut That/Not further exposes the inner workings of a young musician with the ability to play in any context, but the boldness to do his own thing.”

Born in 1980, multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is fast becoming a vital voice in New York City's jazz and creative music scene. Originally self-taught in composition, piano, trombone, and percussion, he has worked with chamber ensembles and collaborated with a diverse array of musicians, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Ray Anderson, Wadada Leo Smith, Peter Evans, Mario Pavone, Ellery Eskelin, Dave Douglas, Mark Helias, and Butch Morris, among many others. Sorey's debut release That/Not (Firehouse 12) baffled many critics, becoming one of 2007's most critically acclaimed recordings.

He is currently in the Masters program at Wesleyan University, where he studies with Anthony Braxton, among others.

“It's a two-disc manifesto of some downright iconoclastic music,” writes Nic Jones about Sorey’s That/Not, “and the work of a quartet of musicians with their eyes seemingly on expansive, open, new vistas. That much is clear in every note they play. The overall effect is that of a group working within the widest parameters of the avant-garde, and the music has no obvious precedents. The pervasive feeling throughout this programme is that Sorey and his colleagues have arrived fully formed on the scene, in the same way as saxophonist Ornette Coleman's quartets did on that body of albums they cut for Atlantic all those years ago.”

Tickets are $10 and $5 (students), and available through the Fine Arts Center box office, 545-2511 or
1-800-999-UMAS.