Derrick Michaels, tenor saxophone
John Dierker, reeds
Chris Pumphrey, piano & saxophone
Mike Kuhl, drums

“The wholehearted expression of music has the potential to uplift the spirit and heal our hearts. These 12 "Derrick Michaels Presents" concerts are representative of a creative continuum which is designed to challenge convention and elude classification. I’ve stationed my tenor saxophone at the axis of a distinctive array of ensembles, putting full trust in improvisation as a potent unifying force across musical boundaries. The mission is to deliver music of substance --embracing the community, while affirming the exceptionally personal nature of creative process for the improvising musician.”

Derrick Michaels is a Baltimore-based tenor saxophonist | composer | educator, and an inexorable force in the creative music community. Boasting a rich, expressive tone and a propensity for dynamic performance, Michaels harnesses the primordial impulse to create -- bringing a kaleidoscopic process of melodic architecture to a myriad of egalitarian improvisational ensembles.

Michaels communicates with vitality, romanticism, and reckless abandon - enveloping listeners into the process of his music as it unfolds into the present moment. His deeply personal approach to performance and instruction favors expressive nuance over idiomatic reverence, invoking the rich expressive history of the tenor saxophone while refracting it through his own prism of creative purpose. Each performance both demonstrates and defies his strong roots in jazz by plunging unapologetically into the unknown.

Over the years, many important musical relationships have developed with the likes of Ellery Eskelin, Susan Alcorn, Michael Formanek, Dave Ballou, John Dierker, Eric Kennedy, Mike Kuhl, Jon Seligman, Zach Swanson, Theljon Allen, Alex Weber, Jeff Reed, Phil Cunneff, Ben Frock, Chris Pumphrey, Sarah Hughes, Jarrett Gilgore and many more.

Tickets: $15 in advance/$18 at door/$10 full-time students with ID