Tim Ray - piano | Greg Hopkins - trumpet | Eugene Friesen - cello

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Tre Corda Biographies

Perhaps best known as pianist for Lyle Lovett and Jane Siberry, Tim Ray’s wide-ranging skills as a soloist and accompanist have afforded him the opportunity to perform with legendary performers from all walks of music. Appearing on over 60 recordings to date, Tim has performed in concert with an extensive list of pop music icons, notably Bonnie Raitt, Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed, Rickie Lee Jones, Willie Nelson, kd lang and Soul Asylum. He regularly performs with leading figures in the jazz world, among them Gary Burton, Scott Hamilton, Eddie Daniels, Bucky Pizzarelli, Lewis Nash and Rufus Reid, and his classical credits include solo performances and concerts with Gunther Schuller, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Boston Classical Orchestra. Tim’s busy schedule has included frequent tours throughout the Americas, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and has included performances at Carnegie Hall, the White House, the Kennedy Center and the 1992 Presidential Inauguration. Tim has also performed repeatedly on “The Tonight Show” (Johnny Carson, Jay Leno), “Late Night with David Letterman,” “The Conan O’Brien Show,” “Austin City Limits” and various other national TV and radio broadcasts. A sought-after arranger and composer, Tim has penned numerous original works for his trio Tre Corda, for solo piano, big band, string orchestra, and an extensive body of writing for jazz trio and quartet, some of which appear on Tim’s own Ideas & Opinions, released in 1997 on Gunther Schuller’s GM Recordings label. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and taught jazz piano and improvisation while on the faculty of the Berklee College of Music. Tim has lectured and taught improvisation at Harvard University and MIT, and conducts workshops and clinics at colleges and high schools throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Performer, composer, and arranger Greg Hopkins first picked up the trumpet as a boy in Detroit, and to this day it would be hard to spot him without his horn. That symbiosis of man and musical instrument is evident throughout Greg’s career, which began in 1965 freelancing in the Detroit area for such acts as the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Gladys Knight. Greg made a name for himself recording and touring for several years as soloist and arranger for the Buddy Rich Orchestra (he was called “a real find” by the London Times in 1974), but he has also performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Joe Williams and Tony Bennett, as well as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Boston Brass Ensemble. His own 16-Piece Jazz Orchestra CD Okavongo received 4 1/2 stars from Downbeat Magazine, and is out on the Summit label, as is his quintet CD Quintology (3 1/2 stars) featuring Bill Pierce, and his nonet CD featuring Chuck Marohnic and Sam Pilafian. Greg is also featured on the new Grammy winning jazz CD by Joel Pallson and his Septet, and is featured trumpet soloist with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra on Arthur Welwood’s Wind, Sky, and Clouds. His busy teaching and performing schedule takes him literally all over the world doing concerts, festivals and clinics. A Professor of Jazz Composition at Berklee College of Music, Greg has developed and teaches several courses in composition and also directs the prestigious Berklee Concert Jazz Orchestra.

Eugene Friesen is at the forefront of a new generation of musicians versed in jazz, classical, popular and world music. A graduate of the Yale School of Music, he is active as a performer, composer, teacher and recording artist, and has worked with such diverse artists as Dave Brubeck, Toots Thielemans, Betty Buckley, Anthony Davis and Will Ackerman. Eugene's gift for the responsive flow of improvisatory music has been featured in concerts all over the world with the Paul Winter Consort, Trio Globo with Howard Levy and Glen Velez, and with poets Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Coleman Barks. He has performed as a soloist at the International Cello Festival in Manchester, England; Rencontres d'Ensembles de Violoncelles in Beauvais, France; and at the World Cello Congress in Baltimore, Maryland. His compositional credits include five albums of original music: Sono Miho, In The Shade Of Angels, New Friend, Arms Around You and The Song of Rivers. Friesen was awarded a Grammy award as a member of the Paul Winter Consort for the 1994 album Spanish Angel, and he was the 1999 recipient of grants from the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund and Continental Harmony to compose a symphonic setting of Carl Sandburg's Prarie, which was premiered in 2001. Eugene is an artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and he teaches cello, improvisation and leads the String Orchestra as an Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

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