Fred Ho in 2013
(Photo by Joshua Bright for The New York Times)
Dominique-René de Lerma
From: Big Red Media Inc. [mailto: bigredmedia@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2014 2:26 PM
Subject: Fred Ho passing 4/12/14
April 12, 2014: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Marie Incontrera
917-952-2900 | marie.incontrera@gmail.com
Fred Ho (August 10, 1957 – April 12, 2014)
Fred Ho
passed away on the morning of Saturday, April 12, 2014 in his home in
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, ending an eight year battle with metastatic
colorectal cancer. He is survived by his mother, Frances Lu Houn, two
sisters, Florence Houn and Flora Houn Hoffman and their families, and
his companion, Melanie West. He leaves behind a legendary body of
musical work; authored and co-edited several books of political theory
and the cultural politics of music, a revolutionary political movement,
Scientific Soul Sessions; two big bands; and a distinct Afro-Asian
aesthetic.
There
will be no funeral; Fred will be cremated and his ashes will be spread
over the sea of Kauai, Hawaii, where he will swim forever among the
coral reefs. A memorial is being organized for a later date and will be
held at BAM Cafe in Brooklyn. A celebration concert with the Eco-Music
Big Band will be held later this month on April 23, 2014 with concerts
at 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm at Ginny's Supper Club at Red Rooster Harlem
(212-421-3821).
***
Fred Ho is
a one-of-a-kind revolutionary Chinese American baritone saxophonist,
composer, writer, producer, political activist and leader of several
music ensembles. For two decades, he has innovated a new American
Multicultural Music embedded in the swingingest, most soulful and
transgressive forms of African American music with the influences of
Asia and the Pacific Rim. As Larry Birnbaum writes in Down Beat "Fred
Ho's style is a genre unto itself, a pioneering fusion of free-jazz and
traditional Chinese music that manages to combine truculence and
delicacy with such natural ease that it sounds positively organic."
Ho,
whose music has been hailed as “hard driven and energetic, with a
subtle underlying sense of humor” (New York Times) is a prodigious
composer, having recorded more than fifteen albums as a leader and
written several critically acclaimed operas, music/theater epics,
cutting edge multimedia performance works, scores, oratorios and a
martial arts ballet. He has received numerous grants and commissions
from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Apollo Theatre Foundation,
The Rockefeller Foundation, NY State Council on the Arts, Chamber Music
America and World Music Institute among others to present his vision of
music and the arts. Fred Ho has been the subject of several scholarly
works while other distinctions include a 1996 American Book Award, a
Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2009 Harvard Medal of Arts and in 1988 became
the youngest person to receive the Duke Ellington Distinguished Artist
Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst.
Recent
commissions include the nationally toured and celebrated Voice of the
Dragon; Josephine Baker's Angels from the Rainbow for Imani Winds; Suite
for Matriarchal Shaman Warriors for percussion ensemble IIIZ+ and a
Jazz Commissioning Award from Chamber Music America to compose Suite Sam
Furnace. Other unique compositions include the music/theater project
Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon!, a martial arts sword epic
co-created with Ruth Margraff paying homage to manga and samurai film
classics, the opera Mr. Mystery: The Return of Sun Ra to Save Planet
Earth with libretto by Quincy Troupe, and Dragon vs. Eagle in
collaboration with Ruth Margraff for the Apollo Theater and Brooklyn
Academy of Music Next Wave Festival.
As
a musical leader, Fred Ho founded the Afro Asian Music Ensemble in 1982
and Monkey Orchestra in 1990, co-founded the Brooklyn Sax Quartet with
David Bindman in 1997, Caliente! Circle Around the Sun (featuring Ho's
solo baritone saxophone with poets Magdalena Gomez and Raul Salinas).
Additionally, Fred has published several books including his newest
Wicked Theory, Naked Practice, a groundbreaking collection of his
writings, speeches and interviews from the past 30 years. Fred's recent
works include Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon! (2013, La MaMa),
and Sweet Science Suite (2013, BAM). He was the founder of the Green
Monster Big Band, his premiere big band, and the Eco-Music Big Band, a
chamber big band that performs his works as well as the works of Cal
Massey and emergent 21st century revolutionary big band composers. Both
ensembles, now led by Marie Incontrera, are available for bookings.
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