
Jazz Composers Alliance Presents the JCA Orchestra
Sunday, November 8, 2026 · 1:45 PM EST · The Lilypad · Cambridge, MA
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About this event
$20 admission / $15 for students and seniors / 1:45 doors / 2pm start New Music for the 21 piece Jazz Orchestra by resident composers David Harris, Darrell Katz, Bob Pilkington and Mimi Rabson. The Jazz Composers Alliance was founded in 41 years ago to support, develop and promote the art of music composition in the jazz idiom. The JCA Orchestra was founded to realize that goal, and it has been a fixture on Boston’s creative music scene ever since its first performance in December 1985. The JCA Orchestra has released 12 critically acclaimed CDs. Wheelworks was on Downbeat’s Best of 2016 list. The group has performed (and on a few occasions, recorded with) an illustrious group of guest performer/composers, including Sam Rivers, Julius Hemphill, Dave Holland, Maria Schneider, Henry Threadgill, Steve Lacy and Oliver Lake. Drawing on influences that span the history of jazz and the world's musical traditions, the JCA Orchestra has brought together a huge palette of sounds, structures and concepts. This group has premiered well over 125 pieces. Our concepts include extended forms, group improvisation from a variety of approaches, notated and not notated music, and striving to combine composition and improvisation in new ways. The 21-piece JCA orchestra a string trio, a vocalist, as well as a full-time flute player, and French horn, we’re not a typical big band, We have lasted since 1985, and it’s because we have a like-minded group of people who love making music, who are committed to stretching boundaries, and write and perform with joy and passion. JCA performances have variety, adventure, and a great communal feel. “The band plays with drive and vitality. the soloists responding with imaginative fire to the charts and the ensemble. This is contemporary big band music of a very high order, written and played with considerable skill and integrity”-swing2bop.com/reviews. “It is a remarkable feat to keep a big band such as this one going for as long as it has, and…
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