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Mali Obomsawin Sextet & Coast Jazz Orchestra of Dartmouth College

Next Stage Arts presents:

Mali Obomsawin’s debut compositional suite, Sweet Tooth, weaves together the free-improvised music traditions and those of her Wabanaki community. Centering ancestral reverence, the suite offers a vision of spiritual peace in a world of rage and resistance. Obomsawin, seeking to honor liberation innovators before her, explores colonialism and blood politics through the musical lens of Indigeneity. Mali Obomsawin Sextet features a cast of young leaders in the avant-garde scene including Miriam Elhajli, Savannah Harris, Allison Burik, and Noah Campbell, and mentor Taylor Ho Bynum.

Obomsawin is a bassist, singer, composer and songwriter from Odanak W8banaki Nation. Known for her extensive work in the American folk scene as a bassist and with her trio Lula Wiles (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings), Obomsawin draws her influences from a wide range of North-American traditional musics. She is an internationally known artist, having performed and taught across the United States, Canada, and Europe, and her three releases on the Smithsonian label have garnered acclaim from Rolling Stone, NPR, and Paper Magazine. In 2020 she joined the Indigenous Performance Production, “Welcome To Indian Country,” a show featuring the original content of six Native artists from across the country.

Raised in Wabanaki, Quebecois, blues, and Appalachian folk traditions, Mali was brought into the avant-garde and improvised music community in her teens. This musical upbringing brought her to Berklee College of Music before attending Dartmouth College, where she graduated in 2018. Today, you can find her deftly navigating the indie-rock, avant-garde, and trad music scenes alike as an accompanist and frontwoman. Alongside her work as a musician, Obomsawin is a journalist and organizer in the racial, environmental justice, and #LandBack movements.

The Coast Jazz Orchestra at Dartmouth is a musical collective that is centered around bringing Jazz, Black American Music, and Creative Music to the Upper Valley and beyond. Working with a wide variety of artists, styles, and periods in the jazz tradition, the Coast strives to be a community dedicated to the cultivation of joy and sonic expression. Whether playing classic big band pieces or more contemporary creations, the band consistently blends past and present traditions into every note. With over 100 years of history, the Coast is likely the world’s longest continuously-running college jazz ensemble.

Under the direction of Taylor Ho Bynum, the Coast has recently explored repertoire ranging from Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Carla Bley and Charles Mingus, to new works and world premieres by Bynum and his contemporaries like Mary Halvorson and Kris Davis. In addition to collaborating with Mali Obomsawin’s sextet for a massive two-band finale, the band will be celebrating its pandemic-era release “Lookin’ Forward . . .” – a collection of highlights from the previous four years, available on vinyl, or free digital audio and video versions.

Proof of vaccination or negative COVID test within 48 hours required for entry to indoor shows. Masks required while inside the venue.