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Saxophonist, composer, and
multi-instrumentalist
Mike
Fuerstein has performed as both a leader and sideman
throughout the Northeastern United States, appearing at such major
venues as The Boston Globe
Jazz Festival (Boston), Blues Alley (Washington D.C.), The New Jersey
Jazz Festival (Hoboken, NJ), The House of Blues (Cambridge, MA), and
The Knitting Factory (New York). A native of the New York area,
Fuerstein first developed an abiding love for music at summer camp, where
he was
prodded to pick up the tenor saxophone in order to fill out the camp's
big band (his original instrument was the clarinet). Smitten with
the visceral and cerebral thrills of jazz music, Fuerstein quickly
began studying seriously, going on to earn an undergraduate degree at
the New England
Conservatory of Music, and learning under such luminaries as Paul
Bley, Danilo Perez, Jerry Bergonzi, and George Russell.
After finishing college in
2000 Fuerstein settled in Brooklyn, performing regularly around New
York City as a reed player, and increasingly dedicating himself to
composition and songwriting. For this, he works from a diverse
palette of musical interests and influences, among which are classical
composers such as Debussy, Reich,
and Ligeti,
modern electronic
producers such as Boards of
Canada and Bjork, a wide range
of
contemporary rock
songwriters and, of course, jazz visionaries such as Wayne
Shorter and Miles Davis.
His most recent project, Mainframe, is a band comprising electric bass, Rhodes piano and synthesizers, drums, alto saxophone, and himself on tenor saxophone. For Mainframe, Fuerstein writes music which draws from the pulse of New York's unrelenting urban cycles and cadences. The compositions integrate many of his wide-ranging musical influences, layering intricate melodic fugues and minimalist phases over dense electronic textures and eclectic grooves. All of the music features both extended through-composed and improvised sections. After several years of painstaking writing, recording, and production work, Fuerstein has recently announced the release of Mainframe's self-titled debut on his own record label, Rad Translation Records. In addition to pursuing
his
various musical endeavors, Fuerstein is currently a fourth-year
doctoral student in the Columbia
Department of Philosophy, and is in the early stages
of writing a dissertation in contemporary democratic theory.
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