ROB MAZUREK EXPLODING STAR ORCHESTRA with Fame’s Chamber Orchestra

Rob Mazurek – conductor, trumpets, electronics, composer
Angelica Sanchez – piano
Pasquale Mirra – vibraphone
Josh Abrams – bass
Chad Taylor – drums
Mauricio Takara – table percussion, electronics
Damon Locks – voice, samplers

+ Fame’s Chamber Orchestra

Composer, cornetist, visual artist, musical director and a central figure in Chicago’s avante-garde scene since the 1990s, Rob Mazurek gained huge notoriety with Chicago Underground, a group that metamorphosed from a duo to an orchestra. In Brazil, where he lived for several years, he trialled a similar project called São Paulo Underground, creating the seminal Exploding Star Orchestra when he returned to Chicago. Within this project launched in 2005, Mazurek created a vehicle that could encompass the disparate styles and ideologies of the wide range of free forms of expression and has explored the most avant-garde currents in the scene, incorporating musicians from post-rock, AACM and free improvisation. Together they evoke Béla Bartok and Gil Evans, Morton Feldman and Bill Dixon, Sun Ra and The Art Ensemble of Chicago. The universe is a very big place. Rob Mazurek is doing his part to fill it with glorious sound.