
Illegal Crowns and the Coast Jazz Orchestra
Another Prayer for Passive ResistanceIllegal Crowns and the Coast Jazz Orchestra
Another Prayer for Passive ResistanceAn internationally acclaimed collective quartet shares the evening with the Hop's resident student jazz orchestra, offering improvised music to meet the moment.
Illegal Crowns unites the long-standing trio of guitarist Mary Halvorson, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and cornetist (and Coast director) Taylor Ho Bynum with French pianist Benoît Delbecq—their music together has been described as "rare and profound deep listening, complete trust and supporting one another through every unexpected turn…" Salt Peanuts
The Coast Jazz Orchestra will perform original music by Halvorson and Fujiwara, in addition to exploring repertory from revolutionary composers like Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Carla Bley and Sun Ra—artists whose music challenged the dominant reality and conjured sonic worlds of greater justice, beauty, and compassion.
Tomas Fujiwara is a Brooklyn-based drummer, composer, and band leader. Described as "a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist whose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming" (Point of Departure), Tomas is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation, with his bands Triple Double, 7 Poets Trio, and Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up; his collaborative duo with cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum; the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Mary Halvorson and Michael Formanek); and a diversity of creative work with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Mary Halvorson, Matana Roberts, Joe Morris, Taylor Ho Bynum, Nicole Mitchell, Ben Goldberg, Tomeka Reid, Amir ElSaffar, Benoit Delbecq, and many others. "Drummer Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever shifting. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint…A conception of the drum set as a full-canvas instrument, almost orchestral in its scope." (New York Times).
Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson has been described as "a singular talent" (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes), "NYC's least-predictable improviser" (Howard Mandel, City Arts), "one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz—or otherwise" (Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal), and "one of today's most formidable bandleaders" (Francis Davis, Village Voice). In recent Downbeat Critics Polls Halvorson has been celebrated as guitarist, rising star jazz artist, and rising star composer of the year, and in 2019 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Halvorson has released a series of critically acclaimed albums on the Firehouse 12 label, most recently Artlessly Falling with her ensemble Code Girl. One of New York City's most in-demand guitarists, over the past decade Halvorson has worked with such diverse musicians as Tim Berne, Anthony Braxton, Taylor Ho Bynum, John Dieterich, Trevor Dunn, Bill Frisell, Ingrid Laubrock, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, Tom Rainey, Jessica Pavone, Tomeka Reid, Marc Ribot and John Zorn. She is also part of several collaborative projects, most notably the longstanding trio Thumbscrew with Michael Formanek on bass and Tomas Fujiwara on drums.
Taylor Ho Bynum is a composer, performer and interdisciplinary collaborator, and a producer, organizer, teacher, and writer. His expressionistic playing on cornet and expansive vision as composer have garnered him critical attention on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and dozens more as a sideman, including The Ambiguity Manifesto, a top-10 choice in the 2019 NPR Jazz Critics' Poll. His varied endeavors include leading his own bands, his Acoustic Bicycle Tours (where he travels to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles) and his stewardship of Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation (which he served as executive director from 2010-2018, producing and performing on many major Braxton projects, including two operas and multiple festivals). Bynum has worked with other legendary figures such as Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor and maintains current collaborative projects with Tomas Fujiwara, Mary Halvorson, Kyoko Kitamura, Joe Morris, and Tomeka Reid, among others. He is currently the director of the Coast Jazz Orchestra at Dartmouth College, where he also teaches music history, composition and improvisation, and his writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Baffler, Point of Departure and Sound American.
Born in 1966, based in Bondy near Paris, pianist, composer and producer Benoît Delbecq figures among the innovators of the international contemporary jazz scene. He has about forty discs as leader or in collectives, on a discography of more than 120 recordings. A former student of Mal Waldron and Muhal Richard Abrams among others, Benoît's international career started around 1992 from Parisian cutting-edge club Les Instants Chavirés, in parallel to the founding of Kartet, The Recyclers and the hyperactive Hask Collective which helped revitalize the Paris creative music scene. Delbecq's works include regular collaborations with Evan Parker, Mark Turner, Fred Hersch, Andy Milne, Ethan Iverson, Kris Davis, among many others. His latest solo album, The Weight of Light on Pyroclastic Records, was described as "a mysterious and moving artistic statement from a richly important voice in contemporary improvised music" (London Jazz News).
“a rare and profound deep listening, complete trust and supporting one another through every unexpected turn…”
Salt Peanuts
More Ensembles

"For me, the Coast was a refuge from the rigidity and pressure of academia, where creativity, freedom, and individual voice could flourish." —Mali Obomsawin '18 A Portrait of the Coast Video of A...
Learn More
9/17–22 | Telluride at Dartmouth 9/24–27 | Touki Delphine FIREBIRD 10/16–19 | Dartmouth Arts Celebration Weekend 10/30 Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble Pacho Flores & Héctor Molina 11/2 Dartmouth...
Learn MoreContact Us
Box Office
Hours: Tuesday-Friday: 12-5 pm
Saturday: 2-5 pm
Open one hour prior to all ticketed events at the venue of the performance.
Visiting Information
Hopkins Center
12 Lebanon Street
Hanover, NH