Jon Irabagon
Performance
Oct 28, 2023 - 2–3:30pm
Lower Level, Auditorium (KAM 62)

Sudden Sound welcomes the Jon Irabagon Trio with Jon Irabagon (saxophones) / Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone) / Luke Polipnick (guitar), presented as part of the CU Jazz Festival.

Co-sponsored by the School of Music and Krannert Art Museum. The Sudden Sound Concert Series is organized by Jason Finkelman, Director of Global Arts Performance Initiatives at the University of Illinois.

Saxophonist and composer Jon Irabagon is a progressive jazz artist influenced by the self-empowering and individualistic philosophies and aesthetic of the great AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) ensembles as well as the historic world-class tenor saxophone lineage from his hometown Chicago.

Presented in collaboration with the CU Jazz Festival, Irabagon will feature his Chicago based ensemble members Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone) an outstanding leader in the international jazz and improvisation scene, along with the genre-blurring Luke Polipnick (guitar).

Additional Programming

Jon Irabagon & Jason Adasiewicz will be offering an Improvisers Exchange Workshop sharing their approaches to collective improvisation on Fri, October 27, 2023 from 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm.

Improvisers Exchange Workshop with Jon Irabagon & Jason Adasiewicz
Orchestra Rehearsal Room, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Open to all, admission free.

About Jon Irabagon

Named one of New York City's 25 Jazz Icons by Time Out New York, Irabagon established an award-winning career earning his Master of Arts from the Manhattan School of Music and completing post-graduate studies in the jazz program at Juilliard. In January 2023 Irabagon joined the University of Illinois Chicago jazz faculty.

As a first-generation Filipino-American Irabagon fights against the countless times his voice and those in his community have been marginalized by offering compositions which rely on open dialogues with his fellow performers to create a gateway for communication and understanding. This interaction of notated material and strong improvisatory character is essential to Irabagon's musical vision. 

As music reporter Nate Chinen notes in his Top Performances of 2015 article, Irabagon's compositions “are drawn to the play of opposing forces, especially those involving abstraction of form.”

Irabagon is also the winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition, winner of the Rising Star award in Downbeat Magazine for both alto and tenor saxophones, and the recipient of a Philippine Presidential Award, the highest civilian honor an overseas Filipino can receive in commemoration for their contributions to the perception of Filipinos worldwide.

Irabagon currently runs his own imprint, Irabbagast Records, to release his own uncategorizable works as well as other cutting-edge, creative artists.

www.jonirabagon.com