STREAMING LIVE from Piedmont Piano Company
Dan Zemelman & Mads Tolling
Two-time Independent Music Award winning pianist & composer Dan Zemelman is collaborating once again with renowned violinist, composer, and two-time Grammy Award winner, Mads Tolling. Mads and Dan will perform standards from the Great American songbook, arrangements of pop tunes, as well as some original compositions, and even a Danish folk song or two. Get ready for an exhilarating evening of music and improvisation from two of the Bay Area's great jazz performers.
Watch the LIVE STREAM on youtube.com or facebook
Donation/tips accepted via venmo @Daniel-Zemelman or paypal.me/DanZemelman
MADS TOLLING “has the amazing talent and skills that few young musicians can match. His music is both beautiful and refreshing exhibiting his superb mastery of the modern American Jazz music that is rarely seen among his peers.” –Jean-Luc Ponty, world renowned jazz violinist
Mads is an internationally renowned violinist and composer originally from Copenhagen, Denmark, now living in San Francisco. As a former member of both bassist Stanley Clarke’s band and the celebrated Turtle Island Quartet, Mads won two Grammy Awards, and he was nominated for a third Grammy in 2015. Recently, he was the 2016 winner of the DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star Violin Award. Mads has performed with Chick Corea, Ramsey Lewis, Kenny Barron, Paquito D’Rivera, Leo Kottke and Sergio & Odair Assad.
After graduating Berklee College of Music in 2003, he was recommended by Jean-Luc Ponty to join Stanley Clarke’s band. He has since been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, and his recordings have received rave reviews in Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Strings Magazine and DownBeat Magazine. Mads performed (with Dan) for Danish royalty – Prince Frederik & Princess Mary – at the celebration of The Danish Embassy’s 50-year Anniversary.
Mads has twice been commissioned to write violin concertos – for Oakland Symphony and Pacific Chamber Orchestra. He has performed his symphonic works and soloed with orchestras around the US and Japan. madstolling.com
“While DAN ZEMELMAN possesses a lovely touch and fertile harmonic imagination, what stands out most on One Way Or Another is the probing lyricism that undergirds his group concept. He gives his formidable collaborators plenty of space, but the improvisation is always tightly bound to the melodic line. The resulting music is playful, tender, celebratory and consistently engaging, a rare project that compels a second, third and fourth spin.” –Andy Gilbert, Bay Area jazz critic
Dan studied under legendary jazz bassist Richard Davis at the University of Wisconsin and won an award as Best Jazz Artist at the University.
After moving from Chicago to the San Francisco area in 2001, Dan contributed to blues legend John Lee Hooker’s final studio album Face to Face and toured with daughter and blues vocalist, Zakiya Hooker. Dan also has had the chance to tour and record on an album with the legendary alto saxophonist Lee Konitz along with the Jeff Denson Trio.
Dan is currently a successful bandleader, having performed at the acclaimed Yoshi's Jazz Club three times as a leader as well as at festivals such as the Angra Jazz Festival, the Fillmore Jazz Festival, the SF Jazz Festival, the San Jose Jazz Festival and many more. As an in-demand jazz pianist in the SF bay area, he plays regularly with top bay area jazz icons like Jeff Denson, Marcus Shelby and Adam Theis. As a teacher and clinician, Dan has been on the faculty at several major jazz institutions including Stanford Jazz Institute, Jazzcamp West, The California Jazz Conservatory and Lafayette Jazz Camp. danzemelman.com