Jessica Pavone (viola)
Mary Halvorson (guitar)
Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet)
Tomas Fujiwara (drums)

The Thirteenth Assembly is a touring collective made up of four musicians and four different and musically distinct small ensembles. Styled somewhere between the classic r&b/soul revues of the 60's and a post-modern traveling circus, The Thirteenth Assembly presents a selection of some of the fastest-emerging young artists and bands in New York's creative music scene in one package. Over the course of an evening, each group performs a short thirty-minute set, offering a glimpse of the vibrant and varied stylistic diversity and creativity of this particular musical community.

New York native Jessica Pavone is a string instrumentalist and composer based in Brooklyn who holds degrees in viola performance, music education and composition. She's studied viola with tons of classical teachers, improvisation with Leroy Jenkins and is continuously learning by working within a community of creative musicians in New York, most notably through her work with composer Anthony Braxton.

Most recently, she tours Europe and the United States with The Anthony Braxton Sextet and Twelve+1tet and in a collaborative duo with Mary Halvorson (guitar, viola, and voice). She currently leads two ensembles; The Pavones and Quotidian and improvises in groups led by William Parker,Taylor Ho Bynum, and Matana Roberts. She plays bass guitar with; Minnows, Christy and Emily, and Jason Cady and the Artificials. She has performed at a number of international music festivals including, the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway, The Banlieues Blues Festival in Paris, The Victoriaville Festival of New Music in Canada, the Santa Annarresi Jazz Festival in Italy, All Tomorrows Parties in England, Jazz em Augusto in Portugal, The Wels Unlimited Festival in Austria, and at the Ciclo Jazz Foundation in Spain.

As a composer, she has received commissions to write chamber music for The Eastern Winds and Till by Turning, and her pieces have been heard throughout the northeast in venues such as the Kitchen and Issue Project Room in New York and Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut.

As an instrumentalist, she has interpreted new music by musicians such as Glenn Branca, Butch Morris, Matthew Welch, James Fei, Matt Bauder, David Grubbs, Loren Dempster, Aaron Siegel, and Andrew Raffo Dewar.

Mary Halvorson is a guitarist, composer and improviser living in Brooklyn. She grew up in Boston and studied jazz at Wesleyan University and the New School. Since 2000 she has been performing regularly in New York with various groups and has toured Europe and the U.S. with the Anthony Braxton Quintet (Live at the Royal Festival Hall, Leo Records) and Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant (Sister Phantom Owl Fish, Ipecac Recordings). She has also performed alongside Joe Morris, Nels Cline, John Tchicai, Elliott Sharp, Lee Ranaldo, Andrea Parkins, Marc Ribot, Tony Malaby, Oscar Noriega and John Hollenbeck. Current projects which Mary composes for and performs with include a chamber-music duo with violist Jessica Pavone (On and Off, Skirl Records, 2007); The Mary Halvorson Trio with John Hebert and Ches Smith; and the avant-rock band People (Misbegotten Man, I & Ear Records, 2007). She also performs regularly in ensembles led by Taylor Ho Bynum, Ted Reichman, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jason Cady, Matthew Welch, Brian Chase and Curtis Hasselbring.

Taylor Ho Bynum is a performer on cornet and various brass instruments, composer, bandleader, and interdisciplinary collaborator with artists in dance, film, and theater. Bynum is committed to the further exploration of the extensions of composition and improvisation pioneered by 20th century masters like Ellington, Ives, and the AACM, but with a third millennial flavor and a trickster sensibility. He presently leads his Trio, his Sextet, and the nine-piece ensemble SpiderMonkey Strings, and has developed a body of solo music for cornet and duo work with dancer/choreographer Rachel Bernsen. In addition to leading his own groups, Bynum regularly performs with some of the most innovative figures in creative music, such as Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor, and has ongoing collaborations with such artists as Bill Lowe, Jason Kao Hwang, Joe Morris, Miya Masaoka, Stephen Haynes, Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng, Nate Wooley, Tomas Fujiwara, and the Fully Celebrated Orchestra. He is featured on over forty recordings, and has performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. His work with Anthony Braxton spans over ten years and ranges from duo to orchestra, with recent tours throughout Europe and North America and several new recordings. Their CD Duets (Wesleyan) 2002 has received wide critical acclaim. Bynum's 2005 CD with SpiderMonkey Strings, Other Stories (Three Suites), has been described as "the best album of the year" (All About Jazz) and "beautiful music and challenging throughout" (The Wire). Two new CDs were released in Spring '07: True Events (duo with Tomas Fujiwara; The New York Times calls it "a scintillating album... a duologue crackling with improvisational energy but guided by compositional prescription"), and The Middle Picture (with his Sextet and Trio; which received "four stars" from Downbeat Magazine).

Tomas Fujiwara was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. At the age of seven, he fell in love with music while listening to the classic drum battle record, Rich vs. Roach. After two years of studies with Joyce Kauffman, Tomas began an eight-year course of study with legendary drummer and educator, Alan Dawson. In 1994, Tomas moved to New York City. Since then, he has worked as a leader of and composer for various ensembles, as a sideman, as a composer for theatre, film, and dance, and as a teacher and clinician. In 1997, Tomas formed Unified Quest (UQ, 1999) with saxophonist James Mahone and bassist Chris Pistorino.

Tomas has led ensembles featuring some of today's brightest young musicians including Taylor Ho Bynum, Matana Roberts, Steve Lehman, Andrew Bemkey, Neil Podgurski, Timo Shanko, Lawrence Clark, and Danton Boller. His current activities as a co-leader include duos with Taylor Ho Bynum (True Events, 2007) and James Mahone (Duets, 2005).

With "a quiet energy that propels" (All About Jazz) and a style that is "both volatile and watchful" (New York Times), Tomas has worked as a sideman with a broad spectrum of artists in a wide range of styles and settings. His current projects include: Taylor Ho Bynum Trio and Sextet (The Middle Picture, 2007), Matana Roberts' Mississippi Moonchile, Coin Coin, and Quartet (The Calling, 2006), Greg Tate's Burnt Sugar, Soo Jung Kae Trio (Soo's Collage, 2006), Kwaku Kwakyee Obeng Group, Nate Wooley Quartet, Josh Sinton's Ideal Bread, Nick Demopolous' Exegesis, Jeremy Wilms' Aji No Moto, and Terence Murren's Eternal Now. He has performed at venues across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, Ireland, England, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Korea, and Japan and has appeared on over a dozen recordings to date.

In 1999, Tomas joined the cast of the Off Broadway hit STOMP. After touring North America, Europe, and Asia for three years, he joined STOMP's New York Company at the Orpheum Theatre. He is a composer of original music for theatre including "Stray Cats" by Tony Award winning playwright Warren Leight. He has also performed with Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Ken Roberson, Mary Testa, and Everett Bradley among other.

Some publications related to this event:
November and December, 2007 - 2007
December, 2007 and January, 2008 - 2007