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NINE WINDS DISCOGRAPHY:
NWCD0237 Harris Eisenstadt - Ahimsa Orchestra
drums, composerDrummer, Percussionist, and Composer Harris Eisenstadt (b.1975) was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He has performed in Africa, North America and Europe at major festivals and concert series, including New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, LA Art Fest, World New Music Days Switzerland, High Mayhem Festival, Los Angeles Art and Hellenism Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Halifax Spring Fever Festival, Bakersfield Jazz Festival, Outpost Creative Soundspace Festival, Earjam Festival, SFAlt Festival, CEAIT Festival, CalArts Creative Music Festival, ROVAte, Line Space Line Festival of Improvised Music, and at traditional Mandinka celebrations throughout the Brikama region of Gambia, West Africa.
Eisenstadt has performed and/or recorded with Steve Beresford, John Bergamo, Jeb Bishop, Big Black, Eric Boeren, Rob Brown, John Butcher, Les Claypool, Nels Cline, Lol Coxhill, Mark Dresser, John Edwards, Simon Fell, Bruce Fowler, Vinny Golia, Wayne Horvitz, Peter Kowald, Yusef Lateef, Bennie Maupin, Butch Morris, James Newton, Jeff Parker, Sam Rivers, David Rosenboom, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Adam Rudolph, Paul Rutherford, Elliott Sharp, Wadada Leo Smith, Steve Swell, Pat Thomas, Michael Vatcher, and Bernie Worrell, among many others.
Harris appears on over twenty-five recordings, with releases on the AOA, Bruce's Fingers, Circumvention, Barely Auditable, CIMP, EMR, Meta, Evander, Infinityland, Newsonic, Plutonium, Questionable, Parallactic, Siren, YAL, and Zerx record labels. The recordings span a wide variety of musics, including contemporary classical, improvised, jazz, composed/improvised, rock, world, and major motion picture scores. Eisenstadt's fourth release as a leader, "Ahimsa Orchestra," will be released on Nine Winds summer 2005. His fifth release as a leader, "The Soul and Gone," comes out summer 2005 on 482's Document Chicago series. He records his sixth session as a leader for CIMP spring 2006.
Eisenstadt has participated extensively in interdisciplinary collaborations. Highlights include work with Wadada Leo Smith accompanying films by Ken Jacobs, work in the dance world with members of Urban Bushwomen Dance Company in New York, and in California with contemporary Butoh dancer Oguri and as an accompanist in the CalArts Dance department. He studied and performed traditional West African and Javanese dance from 1999-2002. Work with theater: Eisenstadt is a member of Macbeth (A Modern Ecstasy), a one-man adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy starring Tony award-winner Stephen Dillane, directed by Travis Preston, musical director Vinny Golia. The play opened November/December 2004 at REDCAT (part of the new Walt Disney Concert hall complex in Los Angeles) to rave reviews and will tour internationally 2005-06. He has received awards, grants, and scholarships from such organizations as American Composers Forum, AOSA, California Arts Council, California Institute of the Arts, Collectif d’Artists Plasticien, the Durfee Foundation, and KlezKanada. KOLA (Kreative Orchestra of Los Angles), the ensemble he co-led with Jason Mears, was nominated for LA Weekly Best Jazz artist (2005), and his recordings have garnered numerous end-of-year top ten awards, including "Vista" (collective trio with sam Rivers and Adam Rudolph), named "Best Recording of 2004" by "One Final Note."
Eisenstadt completed his BA cum laude at Colby College (Maine), lived in New York, then moved to southern California, where he received an MFA (on scholarship) from California Institute of the Arts. 2005 and beyond he will split time between New York and Los Angeles, while keeping active performing, touring, and teaching schedules.
Eisenstadt teaches privately and has taught for several arts organizations. Highlights include work as a demonstrating artist for Lincoln Center's "Rhythm Is Our Business" jazz education program in New York City headed by Lewis Nash, and as drum faculty for The Henry Mancini Institute Summer Jazz Workshop for high school students in Los Angeles.
