Mark Mollica w/ Endless Field

Jazz faculty Mark Mollica joins kindred spirits Endless Field in a concert of music inspired by wild landscapes and reverence for our world, and the convergence of acoustic and improvisatory musical styles. The duo Endless Field (feat. Jesse Lewis and Ike Strum) has received praise for their beautiful, ambient style evoking the American landscapes in which they have recorded, which Down Beat describes as "refreshingly organic in this age of industrialization."

Program

Heart (Endless Field)
Unending Season (Endless Field)
The Gravity of Rivers (Mark Mollica)
Killing the Blues (Rowland Salley)
Drift (Mark Mollica)
Miles Away (Mark Mollica)
Last Light (Mark Mollica)
True (Mark Mollica)

Brooklyn-based Mark Mollica sees the guitar as one of music’s widest ranging voices and brings that spirit to roles in jazz, rock, acoustic music, songwriting, arranging, composition, and production. A Connecticut native, he learned primarily on the job with older musicians until a scholarship took him to the renowned guitar program at the USC Thornton School of Music to study with two of his musical idols, multiple Grammy-winning composer/arranger Vince Mendoza and jazz guitar giant Joe Diorio. There, he earned a masters degree with top honors and the department award for outstanding graduate of 2005. As composer and leader, his originals band and Star Maker Machinery project have received numerous concert grants and have featured some of jazz’s best emerging talent. As a studio musician, he has a range across most mainstream guitar styles from electric soloist to orchestral music. His sideman and creative roles reflect this diversity with collaborations in the singer-songwriter, jazz, and rock circuits, having co-written extensively with Kate Francis Hope, recording with chart-topper Donna Lewis, touring abroad and producing music for film with rocker Dylan Connor, appearing in recital with guitar great Gene Bertoncini, and otherwise enjoying the wide reach of the guitar. His film credits include the award-winning documentary Little Ghandi and the feature film Adverse (feat. Sean Astin, Mickey Rourke, and Lou Diamond Philips), As a solo guitarist, he is primarily focused on original acoustic music, jazz and standards, and a growing list of pieces for live loops. A committed teacher, he is on the guitar faculty at Manhattan’s Bloomingdale School of Music, the Town School, Avenues, and City & Country. Prior, he has taught at USC, and was a clinician for the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles. He also holds a degree in non-fiction writing, has published his work, hiked over 1,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail one spring, and enjoys nothing more than being outdoors with his family.

Hailed as “an articulate ace” (NY Times) and a “poet of the steel string” (Stereophile Magazine), New York City-based guitarist Jesse Lewis is a first call collaborator with the finest musicians in the world. Known as an extremely versatile and eclectic artist, Lewis’ distinctive sound can be heard on a wide variety of projects crossing the worlds of jazz, pop, world music and electronica. In 2008 he released Atticus, revisiting the project with the 20-piece Awakening Orchestra on Atticus Live! in 2016 (Biophiloia Records). Lewis has performed or recorded with many of the world’s finest creative jazz musicians,including Chris Potter, Nicholas Payton, Ellis Marsalis, Ingrid Jensen, Aaron Parks, Donny McCaslin, Anat Cohen, Chris Speed, Joel Frahm, Jon Irabagon, Louis Bonilla, Bill Goodwin, Dick Oatts, Dave Douglas, and Matt Wilson. His unique and eclectic style has also been utilized by a wide variety of artists outside of the instrumental jazz world, such as African music legends Chiwoniso and Sam Mtukudzi; EDM superstar Dominic Lalli of Big Gigantic. Lewis has also worked with many legendary jazz vocalists including the New York Voices, Janis Siegel (Manhattan Transfer), and Jo Lawry, whose new album Taking Pictures features Sting. Most recently, Lewis has been focusing on his newest project, ENDLESS FIELD, a critically acclaimed duo with bassist, Ike Sturm. Lewis also creates electronic music under the moniker of SOUNDS OF ATTICUS.

Bassist and composer Ike Sturm was raised in a musical home in Wisconsin, learning from his father, renowned composer and arranger, Fred Sturm. Ike has performed with Gene Bertoncini, Theo Bleckmann, Ingrid Jensen, Donny McCaslin, Bobby McFerrin, Ben Monder, Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler. He has played on four Downbeat award-winning recordings, as well as several Steve Reich releases on Canteloupe and Nonesuch Records. He has performed with Alarm Will Sound and the International Contemporary Ensemble, along with numerous creative ensembles in New York.
Ike studied jazz and classical bass and composition while earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at the Eastman School of Music. In addition, he studied privately with legendary bassist Dave Holland.
Saint Peter’s Church in Manhattan, where Sturm served as Music Director for the Jazz Ministry from 2004-2021, commissioned him to compose Jazz Mass, a work for voices, strings and soloists that merges diverse musical languages into a powerfully unified aesthetic. The piece was released to critical international acclaim, named one of Downbeat’s “Best Albums of the Year” and has been performed across the U.S., Scandinavia and Europe.
ENDLESS FIELD, Ike’s ambient acoustic duo with guitarist Jesse Lewis has been featured live on WBGO New York’s “The Checkout” and on NPR. Their eponymous 2017 album was released on Biophilia Records and includes GRAMMY-winning soloist Donny McCaslin. The project aims to engage others in environmental awareness and activism through music and volunteer activities. In 2019 Ike and Jesse trekked to Utah to record a live wilderness album using a solar-powered battery, collaborating with National Geographic videographers and L.A. sound engineers. Alive in the Wilderness was released to critical acclaim in 2020. Endless Field traveled to Alaska’s Denali National Park in 2023 to record a remote wilderness record entirely composed and recorded in the mountains and glaciers of Alaska. The music is currently being produced with plans for release next year.

Ike currently leads a new worshiping community in New York City called Finding Our Way Home, as a part of his creative work with connect.faith. He was commissioned by Montview Presbyterian Church in Denver, CO, to write a new large-scale piece called “RIVER” in 2022 for 100 voices, string orchestra and the Ike Sturm Ensemble. It’s a 16-movement work with text written by Vienna-based singer/lyricist, Chanda Rule. The project is being mixed and produced by world-renowned LA engineer, Dana Nielsen and will be released in 2025.

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