MYRA MELFORD`s Fire and Water Quintet featuring Mary Halvorson, Ingrid Laubrock, Tomeka Reid and Susie Ibarra

One of the leading new jazz pianists and composers is to perform in Ljubljana again after a hiatus of several years. She first performed in Slovenia in 1990 when she released her debut album. 
The all-star group initially came together for a sold-out performance at New York’s The Stone, in June 2019. All five women are innovative composers and bandleaders in their own rights as well as being gifted and venturesome improvisers, providing this ensemble a myriad of pathways to explore. Melford has taken full advantage of these uniquely expansive possibilities, crafting a suite of new music that fluidly traverses the borders between notated composition and guided improvisation.
Fire and Water draws inspiration from Melford’s ongoing engagement with the iconoclastic work of the late visual artist Cy Twombly. The band’s name pays homage to the artist’s “For the Love of Fire and Water,” a series that combines his trademark vibrant scribbles and scrawled calligraphic texts. Melford senses an affinity between her own work and Twombly’s “sense of curiosity and play, and his unbridled energy that just jumps off the page.” That spirit animates the instigative music that she has penned for Fire and Water.