Rudresh Mahanthappa Hero Trio + Brandon Ross & Stomu Takeishi’s For Living Lovers
October 19, 2025 @ 8:00 pm – 10:30 pm
Doors at 7:30pm
8:00pm – For Living Lovers
Brandon Ross – acoustic guitar
Stomu Takeishi – acoustic bass guitar
9:15 pm – Rudresh Mahanthappa Hero Trio
Rudresh Mahanthappa – alto saxophone
François Moutin – acoustic bass
Tim Angulo – drums
Over the course of an illustrious twenty-five-year career, Rudresh Mahanthappa’s music making has constantly pushed at the artistic boundaries to encompass such diverse influences as classic bebop, the flash and fury of electric fusion, and the complexities of Carnatic music, while always maintaining a clear sense of his own fiercely intelligent, uncompromising musical personality.
““Rudresh is definitely one of the strongest voices on the jazz scene.”
– All Music
For Living Lovers is the acoustic duo of guitarist Brandon Ross and acoustic bass guitarist Stomu Takeishi. Founded in 2002, the duo developed while Ross and Takeishi were members of visionary, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill’s quintet, “Make A Move”.
“… Ross and Takeishi create tandem waves of sound that mimic a sitar one moment and a Tibetan singing bowl the next.”
– Downbeat
Rudresh Mahanthappa
Hailed by Pitchfork as “jaw-dropping… one of the finest saxophonists going,” alto saxophonist, composer, and educator Rudresh Mahanthappa is widely known as one of the premier voices in jazz of the 21st century.
He has over a dozen albums to his credit, including the acclaimed Bird Calls, which topped many critics’ best-of-year lists for 2015 and was hailed by PopMatters as “complex, rhythmically vital, free in spirit while still criss-crossed with mutating structures.” His most recent release, Hero Trio, was considered to be one of the best jazz albums of 2020 by critics and fans alike.
Rudresh has been named alto saxophonist of the year for nine of the last eleven years running in DownBeat Magazine’s International Critics’ Polls (2011-2013, 2015-2018, 2020-1), and for five consecutive years by the Jazz Journalists’ Association (2009-2013) and again in 2016.
He won alto saxophonist of the year in the 2015-2018 & 2020 JazzTimes Magazine Critics’ Polls and was named the Village Voice’s “Best Jazz Artist” in 2015.
He has also received the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, among other honors, and is currently the Anthony H. P. Lee ’79 Director of Jazz at Princeton University.
Brandon Ross
As a performing and recording artist, guitarist and composer Brandon Ross has worked and collaborated with several innovative voices in modern music such as Henry Threadgill, Wadada Leo Smith, Cassandra Wilson, Jewel, Tony Williams, Lizz Wright, Arto Lindsay, The Lounge Lizards, Leroy Jenkins, Oliver Lake, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Bill Frisell, Me’Shell N’degeocello, Arrested Development, Archie Shepp, Muhal Richard Abrams, Don Byron, Ron Miles, and many others.
Ross leads For Living Lovers, his Chamber Music for Improvisors acoustic duo with acoustic bass guitarist Stomu Takeishi. The duo’s debut album Revealing Essence was released to critical acclaim, and as a recipient of Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works grant, Ross was commissioned to compose the duo’s new work titled Immortal Obsolescence.
Ross co-leads the avant power trio, Harriet Tubman, (with bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis), using electronics and pan-tonality to sculpt a multidimensional, interactive, sonic language in a classic R&B/Rock configuration of guitar, bass, and drums.
In his acoustic-based quartet, Blazing Beauty, Ross plays banjo, electric, acoustic, and soprano guitars to extend his expressive range into “folk” oriented musics and compositional approaches that communicate his dedication to fresh musical experience. He has released two albums with Blazing Beauty, Costume (2004) and Puppet (2006) on the Japanese label Intoxicate Records. Both garnered rave reviews, and appearances on several Japanese critics’ “best of the year” lists.
Described as “restlessly inventive” (Time Out New York), Ross explores various forms of expression in collaborations with artists that inspire him. In AiR with mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran, Ross recasts Roland Hayes’ Aframerican spirituals through contemporary electric guitar vernacular; in DarkMatterHalo, a ‘Glyph’ electronic music collective, Ross investigates the current state and use of “exo-technology” with regard to sound production; in Pendulum, Ross incorporates sound design to expand sonic and textural possibilities beyond the voice of a single instrument; and in Phantom Station Ross establishes a creative music context that hosts a revolving personnel and open musical direction dedicated to collective improvised music making and compositional interpretation.
Ross has been previously commissioned by the ASCAP Foundation, New York State Council of the Arts (NYSCA), and is a recipient of Rockefeller Foundation’s MAP Grant and Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works grant. He is a current ASCAP writer and publisher member.
Ross’ teaching credits include Banff Summer Institute of Jazz and Creative Music, Princeton University’s Graduate Program in Composition, Artez Conservatorium of Arnhem (Netherlands), and Koninklijk Conservatorium, Antwerp (Belgium).