Brad Linde’s Bleak Midwinter Ensemble / Zoë Jorgenson & Parker Speirs

Name: Brad Linde’s Bleak Midwinter Ensemble / Zoë Jorgenson & Parker Speirs
Start: 2025-12-22T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-12-22T21:00:00-05:00
Location: Rhizome DC

Schedule

Mon Dec 22 2025 at 07:00 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Rhizome DC | Takoma Park, MD

Transparent Productions welcomes back Brad Linde’s Bleak Midwinter ensemble at Rhizome DC Monday December 22th. Doors at 6:30PM, music at 7:00PM. The duo of Zoë Jorgenson and Parker Speirs will open the show.
Admission $20-$30, sliding scale.
Brad Linde’s Bleak Midwinter Ensemble: sad songs and waltzes meet Christmas carols and the Avant-Garde in this seasonal sonic exploration.
Brad Linde (reeds), Simone Baron (accordion), Liz Prince (tuba), Keith Butler, Jr. (drums).
PLUS
Zoë Jorgenson (vocals/bass) and Parker Speirs (guitar)
BRAD LINDE was raised in NC, he studied music at Elon University (BA) and attended UNC Chapel Hill before graduating from the University of Maryland, College Park with a MM. He learned the bebop language from Barry Harris and engaged in the Tristano School concepts with pianist Ed Paolantonio before studying privately with Lee Konitz and working with Ted Brown. In 2013, he was a participant in the Banff International Jazz and Creative Music Workshop. He is the director of Jazz and Creative Music at Georgetown Day School and founder of the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra. Brad has played or performed or recorded with a long roster of musicians, including Lee Konitz, Oliver Lake, Grachan Moncur III, Dan Tepfer, and Wadada Leo Smith and is the leader of a number of ensembles.
SIMONE BARON is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer. A listener of sounds beneath, within and beyond, her music plays at the intersection of the familiar and the avant-garde. Simone was educated at Oberlin and Tel Aviv University and joyfully de-educated at festivals and performances across Europe and the Americas. Simone has won grants, fellowships and residencies from Chamber Music America, South Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Hambidge Center, Bloedel Reserve, Istituto Sacatar, iPark, Strathmore Foundation, ArtOMI, UMD, Avaloch Farm, the Banff Centre, and Spectrum Toronto. In 2016 Simone founded Arco Belo, a GenreFluid chamber ensemble. Simone is a Victoria Artist and plays a Poeta XB Accordion.
LIZ PRINCE started out playing tuba in a trad jazz combo at Roosevelt High School. She played tuba in the band from 2003-8 while studying tuba performance and music history at the University of Maryland. Liz went on to play trad jazz gigs in New York City, Baltimore, and D.C., with bands and ensembles such as Grandpa Musselman and the Syncopators, Dix Out, Sac Au Lait, and the Capital Focus Jazz Band.
Having come of age in the cultural melting pot of Wilmington, North Carolina, KEITH BUTLER, JR. has deep roots in many musical traditions. Due in no small part to his versatility and creativity on the drum set, he has become a mainstay of the Washington D.C. music scene, performing with some of the area’s top bandleaders, including Brian Settles, Saltman/Knowles, Amy K. Bormet, Sarah Hughes, Luke Stewart, Elijah Jamal Balbed, Alex Hamburger, and Stephen Arnold. Butler was also a founding member of adventure music ensemble The New World, and is a member/composer of avant-jazz quartet ¡FIASCO! Butler has composed scores for DC productions of the plays Vietgone, and Venus (a staged reading,) both directed by Natsu Onoda-Power as well as Classic Red, a new play by DC playwright Abigail Chase. Butler released his debut album, Greener Grasses, in April of 2019, and is currently in the finishing stages of his second album. Butler is also a 2022 graduate of the MFA in Music Composition program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
ZOË JORGENSON is a bassist, composer, and educator whose work spans jazz, classical, indie, and folk music. She leads the Zoë Jorgenson Trio and regularly performs at the Washington Women in Jazz Festival, among other events. Previously, Jorgenson has toured with big bands and chamber orchestras in the Baltics, Sweden, Finland, and the Philippines, and has conducted orchestras in Bolivia. A versatile and accomplished string pedagogue, Jorgenson is working on a masters in jazz performance and teaches violin, viola, cello, and bass. Zoë is a member of the Strathmore Artist in Residence Class of 2024.

PARKER SPEIRS is a guitarist and composer who feels at home playing jazz standards, new music, reimagined classical repertoire, and much more. He has released several albums under his own name as well as with his crossover trio The Inventures, an ensemble that reimagines classical music by infusing it with jazz, rock, and pop. His talents have landed him a coveted spot as an Artist in Residence at the Strathmore Music Center for the 2023-2024 season. He has recorded with many artists from the pop, R&B, and jazz worlds. Parker resides in the Washington D.C. area and is an in demand guitarist, maintaining a busy performing, teaching, and composing schedule.