UPCOMING EVENTS
EcoTones @ SLPL Live
Cross-Pollinating Music & Nature with The EcoTones Ensemble
Live at SLPL presents: Cross-Pollinating Music & Nature. EcoTones Concerts celebrates the local pollinators who live in St. Louis urban nature spaces including birds, bugs, and butterflies through joyful and whimsical music that cross-pollinates classical chamber music and jazz improvisation. Featuring an EcoTones chamber ensemble of nationally and internationally-known St. Louis-natives including cellist Jody Redhage Ferber and saxophonist Chris Cheek.
Ideal for ages 2-7.
Support for Live at SLPL provided by the St. Louis Public Library Foundation.
Friday April 25, 10:30am, Central Library
Twinspeak: Alan and Mark Ferber Group
Multiple GRAMMY-nominated/winning trombonist composer-arranger Alan Ferber has been called “one of the jazz world’s premier composers and arrangers for larger groups” by All About Jazz NY. His twin brother, Drummer Mark Ferber can be heard on over 200 recordings. This star-studded group will bring an amazing finale concert to the Jazz Festival
Jody Redhage Ferber will be appearing as a guest, performing repertoire from the upcoming album Confluence, featuring Alan Ferber, Mark Ferber, Jody Redhage Ferber, and St. Louis friends.
EcoTones @ SLPL Live
Cross-Pollinating Music & Nature with The EcoTones Ensemble
Live at SLPL presents: Cross-Pollinating Music & Nature. EcoTones Concerts celebrates the local pollinators who live in St. Louis urban nature spaces including birds, bugs, and butterflies through joyful and whimsical music that cross-pollinates classical chamber music and jazz improvisation. Featuring an EcoTones chamber ensemble of nationally and internationally-known St. Louis-natives including cellist Jody Redhage Ferber and saxophonist Chris Cheek.
Ideal for ages 2-7.
Support for Live at SLPL provided by the St. Louis Public Library Foundation.
Sat April 26, 10am @ Carpenter Library
Blue Strawberry: Alan Ferber Nonet
Alan Ferber Nonet
"The nonet format holds a special place in jazz," says bandleader and Grammy nominee Alan Ferber. "The format produces the wide array of voices and colors of a big band, while maintaining the tight, quicksilver unity of a small ensemble. Miles Davis and Gil Evans put the format on the map with their historic 1948-50 Birth of the Cool recordings."
Top-call New York trombonist Alan Ferber reunites with his twin brother Mark, a celebrated Los Angeles-based drummer, to lead an all-star St Louis Nonet.
Alan Ferber / trombone & compositions
Garrett Schmidt / trumpet
Bennett Wood / alto saxophone
Chris Cheek / tenor saxophone
Joel Vanderheyden / baritone saxophone
Matt Sewell / guitar
Adam Maness / piano
Bob DeBoo / bass
Mark Ferber / drums
Special guest: Jody Redhage Ferber / cello performing repertoire from the upcoming album Confluence, featuring Alan Ferber, Mark Ferber, Jody Redhage Ferber, and St. Louis friends.
Multiple GRAMMY-nominated trombonist/composer Alan Ferber has been called “one of the jazz world’s premier composers and arrangers for larger groups” (All About Jazz-NY) and was recognized as 2022’s winner of Down Beat magazine’s International Critics’ Poll for Rising Star trombonist. He has released nine albums as a bandleader, most recently featuring his celebrated nonet called Alan Ferber Nonet: Up High, Down Low on Sunnyside Records. For this show, Alan Ferber will perform music from this album with an all-star band sourced not only from the cream of the St Louis scene, but from jazz stalwarts from both coasts.
EcoTones Concerts @ Little Creek Nature Area
We are thrilled to announce that EcoTones Concerts @ Little Creek Nature Area is coming up on Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 10:00am! Co-sponsored by St. Louis Audubon’s Bring Conservation Home initiative, this full-scale EcoTones features 14 members of the world-class St. Louis EcoTones Ensemble in an all-ages ticketed musical event open to the public. Little Creek Nature Area features a variety of flourishing ecosystems including a pond, forest, and a 40-year-old restored native prairie.
10:00-11:00am Musical Trail
Audience members walk a “Music Trail” through multiple ecotones in the preserve, hearing small ensembles perform music directly inspired by the flora and fauna surrounding each trailside stage, interspersed with naturalists from St. Louis Audubon’s Bring Conservation Home and the Missouri Prairie Foundation providing insights.
11:30am Sit Down Concert
The Music Trail portion of the event is immediately followed by a sit-down concert set at Little Creek Nature Area’s Pavilion, featuring a convergence of all 14 members of the St. Louis EcoTones Ensemble. New music inspired by the prairie ecosystem, its superpower roots, specific native plants, pollinators, and local birds will be performed, including new original compositions and arrangements by five of the ensemble members including Bob Deboo, Danny Campbell, Thomas Jostlein, Alan Ferber, and Jody Redhage Ferber.
The newly crafted creative music of the EcoTones Ensemble creates a musical ecotone across classical music and jazz improvisation. The performance features world-class St. Louis Region professional musicians from the SLSO as well as mainstay players on the regional & international jazz scene including Adam Maness (piano), Alan Ferber (trombone), Ann Choomack (flute), Aska Kaneko (violin), Bjorn Ranheim (cello), Bob Deboo (bass & composition), Danny Campbell (trumpet), Jody Redhage-Ferber (cello & compositions), Kaleb Kirby (drums), Kwanae Johnson (saxophones), Thomas Jöstlein (alphorn, French horn), Tod Bowermaster (alphorn, French horn), Tricia Jöstlein (alphorn, French horn), and Vince Varvel (guitar).
A limited amount of picnic table bench seating will be available for the full-length concert set at 11:30am, but audience members should plan to BYO-EVERYTHING: camp chairs, food and drink etc. Audience members embarking on the Music Trail portion of the event should wear appropriate footwear. In the event of rain, portions of the event will be moved under cover within Little Creek Nature Area. Tickets are Pay-What-You Want with a limited number of free tickets available on a first-come-first-serve basis by emailing ecotonesconcerts@gmail.com (intended for people for whom a Pay What You Want ticket purchase is not possible).
Special thanks to our season nonprofit sponsor St. Louis Audubon Society’s Bring Conservation Home Initiative, as well as our event sponsors Jackson Pianos, Knilling Strings, The Missouri Prairie Foundation, a program support grant from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, Top Notch Violins, and generous private donations. We are grateful to these entities for making this innovative live music event a reality!
EcoTones Concerts: The Wise Trees of River Hook
EcoTones Concerts feature live creative music directly inspired by the flora and fauna surrounding each trailside stage, and create a stylistic ecotone between classical chamber music and jazz improvisation. EcoTones Concerts invite audiences to discover local nature spaces that they may not otherwise visit and to experience nature and music with an open awareness.
Click here to find out about our event last year!
On Sunday, June 1, 2025 at 2:00pm, audiences meander River Hook Preserve's half-mile trail to experience EcoTones Concerts: The Wise Trees of River Hook, hearing world-class professional musicians on trailside stages performing music directly inspired by notable trees throughout the preserve and the wisdom that we humans can garner from these titan nonhuman neighbors. Inspired by the word ecotone from ecology denoting a transition zone where two biomes meet that is particularly rife with life, EcoTones Concerts encourage an eco-social worldview of interrelatedness between humans and nonhumans, and whimsically create musical ecotones between classical and jazz.
The performance features a collaboration between Nyack poet Lily Greenberg and composer Jody Redhage Ferber, in which new poems by Greenberg, written in response to specific trees in the preserve, become the lyrics of new songs premiered at the event. The event features performances of live creative music directly inspired by the preserve's trees by the world-class professional musicians of the Hudson Valley EcoTones Ensemble, Nyack-based vocal ensemble Collective Accord directed by Dru Pluhowski, and the Nyack High School Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Tanya Chanphanitpornkit, and vocal soloists Ilana Davidson and Gino Sitson. Hand-crafted woodblock printed stage signs created by the Nyack High School Art Department and artist Danielle McDonald will be featured at each trailside stage, and local nature art organization Strawtown Studio collaborates for audience art-making in response to music.
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Alan Ferber- trombone, compositions, arrangements
Ben Kono- flute, saxophones, arrangements
Chris Dingman- vibraphone
Gino Sitson- voice, compositions
Glenn Schloss- percussion
Ilana Davidson- voice
Jody Redhage Ferber- cello, voice, compositions
Jon Roth- trombone
Kevin Farrell- bass
Mayra Casales- percussion
Zaneta Sykes- percussion, voice
The Music Trail opens at 2:00pm and includes small ensembles on trailside stages along the preserve’s half-mile meandering path, including:
The Breath Exchange in the west sculpture garden
Oracle Grove in the west forested grove
Mother Maple beside the preserve's largest maple near the Carriage House
The Flora & Fauna Percussion Jam in the naturescape playground
Immediately following the Music Trail, a sit-down large ensemble set features all professionals of the EcoTones Ensemble, the Nyack HS Chamber Orchestra, Collective Accord, and vocal soloists Gino Sitson and Ilana Davidson at the preserve’s central Carriage House Stage.
Audience members should plan to BYO-Everything: camp chairs, food and drink. Audience members embarking on the Music Trail portion of the event should wear appropriate footwear. In the event of rain, portions of the event will be moved under cover within River Hook Preserve. River Hook’s half-mile trail is ADA accessible.
Special thanks to ArtsRock.org, the Village of Upper Nyack, Greenbush Construction, Long Path Outfitters, the Bakehouse at the Tarrytown train station, the Friends of River Hook, an ArtsAlive grant through ArtsWestchester, and many local private donors for making this event possible!
With Gino Sitson @ NYU's Maison Francaise
I am so excited to be reconvening with vocal wizard Gino Sitson, PhD at NYU's Maison Francaise, located at 16 Washington Mews, just north of Washington Square Park. We'll play from 7:00-8:00pm, a set of all Gino's amazing music melding his vast worldwide experiences in Cameroon, Paris, the Caribbean, and of course NYC, his current home for over 20 years. We'll be joined by special guest Alan Ferber---a trio configuration that Gino and I have been wishing could emerge for a long time! Come check out Gino's unique music melding chamber music & jazz--joyful, rhythmically intricate, timbrally beautiful, and super fun to play. Tickets here.
EcoTones Fundraising Chamber Music Concert
We will be hosting a fundraising concert for future EcoTones events. All proceeds will go towards paying musicians in upcoming concerts. We are so grateful for your interest and support!
Please email ecotonesconcerts@gmail.com to reserve a ticket. This will be a house concert, and address details will be emailed to ticket buyers.
Sara Caswell, violin; Camila Meza, guitar & voice; Jody Redhage Ferber, cello.
Ben Kono Voyages' Project
Admission $20 adults/$10 students (type in 'student' for discount code)
Join us as we celebrate the release of Ben Kono’s third recording as a leader ‘Voyages’, a project made possible in part by Chamber Music America New Jazz Works and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. ‘Voyages’ is inspired by the memoirs of Juhei Caleb Kono and stands as a tribute to Japanese-American immigrants who paved the way for later generations, celebrating their enduring spirit and resilience. Kono's core jazz quintet will be joined by a stellar string quartet accomplished in both classical and jazz genres. Come experience a transformative musical experience that transcends the boundaries of jazz, classical and folk idioms; an immigration story told through the power of music.
"Mr. Kono, a versatile woodwinds specialist… has a gleaming new album…that establishes his style as a bandleader-composer: cosmopolitan and unflappable, with a feel for rallying his sidemen.”—Nate Chinen, The New York Times
EcoTones @ River Hook Preserve
For More Information, please contact:
Jody Redhage Ferber (cellist, composer), EcoTones Founder/Director
EcoTones @ River Hook Preserve on Sunday, June 2, 2024 at 2:00 pm (rain date of June 9 at 2:00 pm) invites audiences to walk a half-mile Music Trail through Upper Nyack’s River Hook Preserve, hearing small ensembles play music inspired by the park’s flora & fauna, followed by a sit-down concert featuring the professionals of the EcoTones Ensemble alongside the Nyack High School Chamber Orchestra. Audience members self-pace along the meandering Music Trail with small ensembles performing at a ‘Beings of the Air Stage’, a ‘Flora and Fauna Percussion Jam’, 12-foot Alphorns in the former sheep pasture, and a ‘Pollinator Jazz Jam.’ Following the Music Trail portion of the event, all musicians and audience convene at the preserve’s central Carriage House for a sit-down concert set. The full ensemble will perform musical selections inspired by the nearby Hudson River, Hook Mountain, and the concept that everyone belongs in this treasured public nature space—human and nonhuman alike.
EcoTones is thrilled to partner with local arts nonprofit ArtsRock.org to present this family-friendly event open to the public, and thanks the Trustees of the Village of Upper Nyack for making this event possible, as well as the generous support of local business sponsors Greenbush Construction and Long Path Outfitters, and an ArtsAlive Grant from ArtsWestchester. The performance features world-class, Grammy-nominated and Grammy-winning professional musicians from Rockland and Westchester Counties and the surrounding region including Alan Ferber (trombone, compositions), Ben Kono (saxophone, composition), Glenn Schloss (drums), Ike Sturm (bass), James Hampson (alphorn/french horn), Jesse Lewis (guitar), Jody Redhage Ferber (cello, compositions), Matthew Jaimes (alphorn/french horn), Noah Fotis (alphorn/french horn), Mayra Casales (percussion), Pao-Chieh Tseng (flute), Sara Caswell (violin), Tom Beckham (vibraphone), Wayne Dumaine (trumpet), Zaneta Sykes (percussion), and members of the Nyack High School Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Tanya Chanphanitpornkit.
EcoTones Concerts is inspired by the concept 'ecotone' from ecology--a transition zone between two biomes that is particularly rife with life. EcoTones Concerts braids together professional musicians, audiences, and public nature spaces for live performances of music inspired by the natural performance settings. EcoTones musical repertoire exists in a 'musical ecotone' between classical chamber music and jazz improvisation.
BYO- camp chairs, picnic blankets, snacks, and drinks. Audience members should wear footwear appropriate for a sloped, gravel path. The event requires advanced registration at ArtsRock.org and tickets are Pay What You Choose with free tickets made available to those for whom a donation is not possible by request at ecotonesconcerts@gmail.com.
'Music Trail'—Chamber Ensembles 2:00 - 3:10pm
'Beings of the Air’ Stage: Sara Caswell (violin), Jody Redhage Ferber (cello), Jesse Lewis (guitar). Original compositions by Jody Redhage Ferber inspired by the flying residents of River Hook Preserve.
Alphorn Lookout: James Hampson, Matthew Jaimes, Noah Fotis—Alphorn Trio performs at the top of the Sheep Meadow.
Flora & Fauna Percussion Jam @ the Spring House: Glenn Schloss, Mayra Casales & Zaneta Sykes, percussion. Interactive percussion jam with instruments made from plant and animal parts--audience interaction encouraged!
Pollinator Jazz Jam: Ben Kono (saxophone), Alan Ferber (trombone), Tom Beckham (vibraphone), Ike Sturm (bass). Jazz inspired by River Hook's native plant meadow & pollinators.
'Carriage House Stage' —EcoTones Ensemble with the Nyack High School Chamber Orchestra 3:40 - 5:00pm
Grow to the Sun by Jody Redhage Ferber (Rockland Composer)
Peace of Wild Things by Jody Redhage Ferber
River of Ugly Fishes by Chris Cheek, arranged by Alan Ferber
The River by Keith Jarrett, arranged by Alan Ferber (Rockland Composer) with the Nyack High School Chamber Orchestra.
Belong by Ben Kono (Rockland Composer) with the Nyack High School Chamber Orchestra.
Kopi Luwak by Alan Ferber
Wildwood by Alan Ferber with the Nyack High School Chamber Orchestra.
PARKING is free street parking on Midland Ave. or N. Broadway and parking restrictions have been lifted by the Village for Sunday, June 2 between 1:00-5:00pm. Additional parking is located at Marydell Faith and Life Center on Larchdale Ave. several blocks north of River Hook Preserve. Enter River Hook Preserve from either the Midland Ave. or N. Broadway entrances—there will be registration tables at both entrances.
This project is made possible with funds from Arts Alive, a regrant program of ArtsWestchester with support from the Office of the Governor, the New York State Legislature and the New York State Council on the Arts.
EcoTones: The Urban Prairie @ Tower Grove Park’s Nee Kee Nee
EcoTones Concerts presents imaginative outdoor performances sited in local public nature spaces, exploring connections between humans and the natural world. This event includes a free* family event for families with children ages 0-7 from 10:30-11:45 am; and an All-Ages Ticketed Event 2:00-5:00 pm.
10:30-11:45am
Free Family Event featuring a hike along the Nee Kee Nee Trail with EcoTones musicians, storytime, and outdoor crafts led by the SLPL Carpenter Branch’s children’s librarian. *This event will only include a quintet of EcoTones musicians and is designed for the very youngest concert-goer.
2:00pm ALL AGES FULL ECOTONES ENSEMBLE TICKETED EVENT
This whimsical, innovative live performance event invites audiences to interact with & listen to musicians along a half-mile “Music Trail” along Tower Grove Park’s Nee Kee Nee Stream (Osage for “revived water”), an enchanting and recently constructed trail surrounded by native prairie plantings alongside a recently day-lighted stream in Tower Grove Park’s eastern quadrant. The “Music Trail” with EcoTones musicians in small group configuration along the trail, will be followed by a convergence of all the musicians together at Stupp Amphitheater for a full large ensemble concert set. The sit-down 75-minute concert set will feature 14 world-class professional musicians of the EcoTones Ensemble performing live creative acoustic music inspired by Nee Kee Nee’s Urban Prairie and its resident flora & fauna.
Inspired! Film Showing
Film Showing: Saturday, April 27, 8:00 PM
Title: Inspired! 2024
Year: 2024
Country: USA
On April 27, fifteen local artists in varied disciplines share the sources of their inspiration, each using ten slides and twenty seconds per slide to explain them. Join us for a fast-paced night of creativity and enjoy the many ways that artists find inspiration. The doors open at 7:30 and the program begins at 8:00. Arrive early for complimentary hors d’oeuvres and to give yourself time to look over our silent auction items and raffles. A second round of food and beverages will be available when the Inspired! performers have finished.
Tickets to this unique, entertaining, and enlightening evening are $35 general admission and $25 for Rivertown Film Members. There will be an opportunity to mingle with the artists before and after the presentations. Tickets are limited and are sure to go quickly.
Event MC: DAVID NOVARRO
Anchor and reporter for WABC-TV News Channel 7
The 2024 Inspired! Honorees:
GEORGIA STITT, Composer, music director
KRIS CAMPBELL, Conceptual artist
LAURIE SEEMAN, Place-based artist, educator, environmental advocate
ASHLEY DAWSON, Filmmaker, activist
RICHARD CONNOLLY, Lifelong learner, teacher; writer, editor, publisher and producer
ASHLEY GERST, Animator, filmmaker, professor
JUDITH ROSE, Movement artist/poet
SHAWN RAWLS, Dancer
DEREK TARSON, Actor, director, Elmwood Playhouse board member
FRANK OLIVIER, Film producer, actor, casting agent, pop art illustrator, painter
J.D. ZEIK, Screenwriter
KATHLEEN COLLINS, Filmmaker (represented posthumously by her son, Emilio Collins)
CHERYL BAUN, Karenderya restaurateur
MARIA LUISA WHITTINGHAM, Founder Maria Luisa Boutique
JODY REDHAGE FERBER, Cellist, Composer
Wild Things
Premiering a piece by Jody Redhage-Ferber, NY based cellist, composer, and friend, who has set Wendell Berry’s poem, The Peace of Wild Things, for choir and string quartet.
Join us on Earth Day Eve as we celebrate our belonging to and relationship with the natural world through song! This is a family-friendly event.
Wild Things is a harmonic meditation on the beauty of the natural world. For this concert, we will be joined by singer/composer, wild woman extraordinaire, Moira Smiley, who has arranged and recorded many of her beloved heart-forward songs for choir and string quartet.
Other pieces on the program include the unbelievably beautiful Earth Song by Frank Ticheli, and two excerpts for choir, percussion and hammered dulcimer from Malcolm Dalglish’s Hymnody of Earth.
EcoTones Chamber Music Fundraiser
We will be hosting a fundraising concert for future St. Louis Region EcoTones events.
J
ody Redhage Ferber, cello
Jennifer Judd, piano
Alan Ferber, trombone.