Angela Jimenez
Trumpeter Ingrid Jensen is part of the all-star ensemble.
For Johannes Wallmann to play his new work, there are a few strings attached — violins, cellos and violas.
Wallmann, a pianist and composer, will debut new music that includes a 14-piece string orchestra alongside a jazz quintet in a free concert at UW-Madison’s new Hamel Music Center at 8 p.m. on Feb. 20. It’s not just the presence of strings that makes the performance notable, but the musicians Wallmann has brought to town for the event.
“It’s my dream team,” says Wallmann, the director of jazz studies at UW-Madison.
The quintet will include three New York City musicians: trumpet player Ingrid Jensen, drummer Allison Miller and saxophonist Dayna Stephens. They’ll be joined by Madison bassist Nick Moran and local musicians playing eight violins, three cellos and three violas.
“Fundamentally it’s not a break from anything I’ve done before; it’s an extension of it,” says Wallmann. “The strings add a new voice in a jazz ensemble.”
Wallmann listened to classical chamber and orchestral music as well as studying scores to seek inspiration for what the strings could bring to his music. The strings won’t be improvising, he says.
“I wanted to write music that took those string players and put them in a situation where their skillset is an advantage,” Wallmann says. “I didn’t want to put someone in a position where they are following up an Ingrid Jensen solo.”
Jensen was named 2019’s Trumpeter of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. She’s a native of Canada’s Vancouver Island, where Wallmann lived starting at age 12, but the two didn’t know each other until they began playing in New York City.
“She just keeps raising the bar for herself again and again,” Wallmann says. “She’s better than she ever was and takes on new things, and I love surrounding myself with people like that.”
Stephens won the Downbeat Critics Poll’s “Rising Star-Tenor Saxophone” last year. He and Wallmann have collaborated in the past, including on Wallmann’s 2018 release, Day and Night.
Miller has released critically acclaimed albums with her band Boom Tic Boom. Wallmann wanted to work with her after seeing her perform with the quartet Parlour Game last summer at Madison’s Arts + Literature Lab.
“Every time I make a recording, I try to mix familiar with new and inspiring, to find someone who is going to push me in a new direction,” Wallmann says.
The “dream team” of musicians will be together through the weekend after the concert. They will spend two days at Hamel Music Center recording an album that will be released next year.
[Editor's note: We corrected this article to reflect that Johannes Wallmann is not a native of Vancouver Island; he was born in Germany.]
