Improviser's Exchange: Workshop with Atlas Maior

Atlas Maior creates original music informed by Jazz, Free Improvisation, and the musical traditions of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and India. Band members Joshua Thomson (alto saxophone, flutes), Josh Peters (oud, lutar), Josh Flowers (upright bass), and Gray Parsons (drums) often create cinematic soundscapes that balance intimate moments of sincerity with powerful melodies and incendiary rhythmic passages.

The group writes original compositions that blend maqamat (Middle Eastern modal system) with harmonic progressions found in American Jazz, resulting in a distinct evocative sound. Atlas Maior composes with a variety of instrumentation, including the oud, Chinese hulusi, saxophone, and lutar.

The band often improvises within conceptual frameworks, or freely without form. Atlas Maior's approach often expands and contracts the group's sound through a commitment to dynamics and textural accentuations.

Improvisers Exchange Workshops provide opportunity to engage in sound and thought with leading figures in the field.

Open to all, admission free.