Hallwalls is excited to partner with the UB Music Department to present the groundbreaking work of musician/composer Olivia Block in UB's new state-of-the-art immersive multi-channel audio space.

Olivia Block is a media artist and composer. She is the recipient of the 2026 Alvin Lucier Award for music/sound from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Her discography, spanning nearly thirty years, is published on Another Timbre, Black Truffle, Erstwhile, Ina GRM, NNA Tapes, Room40, Sedimental, and Touch, among other labels. She performs live experimental music, where at any given concert she might be playing electronic instruments, piano, organ or amplified objects. Block also creates surround sound concerts, sound installations and scores. Her most recent live performances are long experimental songs for voice, piano, and electronics. She composes for chamber ensemble, orchestra and pipe organ.

Block has performed, premiered and exhibited her work throughout Europe, America, and Japan in tours in festivals and performance series including Rewire, MoogFest, Festival del Bosque Germinal, Sonic Light, Redbull Academy, Kontraste, Archipel and many others.

She has taught at The School of the Art Institute in the Sound Department and at Northwestern University in the Sound Arts and Industries program. She has completed many university teaching residencies and teaches workshops around the world. Olivia is based in Chicago and Northern New Mexico. She travels widely for her work.

More at: https://www.oliviablock.net/

Breach is an electronic and field recording sound concert mixed live via computer and mixing desk by Olivia Block through multiple speakers surrounding the audience ...

Ricky Ford - tenor saxophone
John Kordalewski - piano
Tony Marino - contrabass
Thurman Barker - drums

Hallwalls is excited to celebrate the 100th Birthday of one of the most influential saxophonist/composers of the 20th century, John Coltrane, with a special tribute concert featuring legendary American saxophonist Ricky Ford. As a bandleader, sought-after sideman, prolific composer, teacher, and an accomplished painter, the master musician is part of a direct lineage of great American tenor saxophonists and has been exploring many different aspects of art throughout his astounding career.

Born on March 4th 1954, he was already training at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1968. He studied under Gunther Schuller, Ran Blake, Jaki Byard, George Russell, Joe Allard and Joseph Maneri before Mercer Ellington invited him to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra, just a few months after the passing of Duke Ellington and Paul Gonsalves. Then he went on to work with Charles Mingus (1976-1977), Dannie Richmond (1978-1981), Lionel Hampton (1980-1982), Abdullah Ibrahim (1983-1990), Mal Waldron (1989-1994), not forgetting the many recording sessions with Yusef Lateef, Sonny Stitt, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Amina Claudine Myers, Sathima Bea Benjamin, and Steve Lacy, to just name a few. As a comprehensive musician, Ford has always strived to master different musical genres, from swing to hard bop to free, and recently focusing on the work of Turkish poet and musician Neyzen Tevfik.

As a leader, Ricky Ford has recorded 21 albums and authored a vast repertoire of originals. The musician has proved to have sharp knowledge and is continually looking for new forms of expression. Ford is also a unique arranger and conductor ...