Fresh off a tour of Croatia, Slovenia and Austria the Eric St-Laurent Trio will be presenting an exciting collaboration with the sTOx Saxophone quartet on Friday, November 28th at Array Music.

The band will be touring Eastern Europe in early November performing Eric’s music with the Dubrovnik Symphony (arrangements by Jordan O’Connor.) Inspired by the experience of working with an orchestra, the trio decided to start broadening it’s sound, and is excited to present this new collaboration. To the best of our knowledge, no modern jazz ensemble has ever formed a collaboration using 4 saxophones, guitar, bass and djembe. It will be an exciting night of music, indeed!

The Eric St-Laurent Trio is a fresh and exciting trio that play the compositions of guitarist Eric St-Laurent and create new interpretations every night through the magic of improvisation. Afro-Cuban rhythms combined with Jazz and Blues elements are the heart of the trio's music. Lyrical melodies, infectious grooves and riffs, plenty of interaction and a good dose of humour round off the picture.

With the unique and highly virtuosic rhythm section of Jordan O'Connor (bass) and Michel DeQuevedo (percussion), this band creates joy, excitement - and a few other emotions that simply haven't been named yet. The Trio has recorded four albums and toured in Canada and Europe extensively over the past 4 years. Their music is regularly featured on CBC.

They will be playing Eric’s music which has been expanded and re-imagined for this unique instrumentation. The final result is kind of like Bartok meets Ellington on a beach in Cuba!

sTOx Quartet formed in the fall of 2013 when four young like-minded musicians came together to commit to playing some great saxophone quartet music. The idea was to explore several different types of chamber music, whether it be classical contemporary, new music of any sort, classical transcriptions, or Canadian music– really, anything exciting that comes their way. It is interesting and always exciting to be incorporating elements of other styles and idioms such as jazz, and other world music into the more classically oriented group. The goal has also been to work with composers to bring to life some fantastic new music. sTOx has had the opportunity to premiere pieces and work with Toronto bassist/composer Jordan O'Connor as well as Toronto composer August Murphy-King.

Details

Friday, November 28th

Array Music Studio

155 Walnut Ave

8pm - $10

Eric St-Laurent Trio

Eric St-Laurent – Guitar

Jordan O’Connor – Bass

Michael DeQuevedo – Percussion

sTOx Saxophone Quartet

Shaun Mallinen

Chelsea Shanoff

Marc Funkenhauser

Jacob Armstrong