Avram Fefer is a New York-based composer, improviser, bandleader, educator, and player of multiple woodwinds. He has written over 60 compositions for a variety of groups and instrumentations — from solos and acoustic duos to eight-piece electric ensembles, as well as incidental music for theater, film, poetry, and dance. He has recorded thirteen albums as a leader, many more as a sideman, and has performed in clubs and festivals throughout Europe, Japan, Africa, and the Middle East. He has performed with musical legends Archie Shepp, Tony Allen, Bobby Few, the Last Poets, Sunny Murray, and Butch Morris, and in renowned off-Broadway productions such as Ivo Van Hove’s “Streetcar Named Desire” and Melvin Van Peebles’ “Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song”.

His own bands have included modern jazz greats like Marc Ribot, Eric Revis, Michael Bisio, Chad Taylor, Reggie Nicholson, Ben Allison, Michael Wimberly and Roy Campbell and he co-led the abstract jazztronica band Rivers on Mars with African-American cultural icon Greg Tate, and has been a long-term member of Tate’s Burnt Sugar Arkestra and Adam Rudolph’s Go:Organic Orchestra.

His newest creation — The Afro-Semitic Transcendental Repertory Orchestra (A.S.T.R.O.) — is a collaboration with multidisciplinary performing artist Carl Hancock Rux celebrating the unparalleled contributions of Jewish and African Americans to American culture at large.

Avram’s recent albums, Juba Lee and Testament, feature a quartet with Marc Ribot, Eric Revis, and Chad Taylor. Both these albums have been garnering rave reviews from across the globe, including from NPR, Rolling Stone, and the NY Times and have led to numerous international festival performances.

He is actively involved in ensembles comprised of anywhere from two to thirty musicians, playing music that ranges from classic and avant-garde jazz to funk, fusion, conducted orchestral music, and a variety of Indian, Arabic, and African music.

If there is a degree of freedom and self-expression in it, he will play it.

Over the years, Avram has also enjoyed a variety of inter-disciplinary collaborations --- with painters, poets, dancers, and sound designers. In 2014 he initiated the Resonant Sculpture Project, a unique international series of solo musical interactions with the large-scale works of legendary sculptor Richard Serra. RSP events have taken place at Gagosian Gallery in New York, Paris, and London, and most recently, at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

In addition to performing, Avram believes deeply in the role of arts education and maintains a thriving private teaching practice in downtown Brooklyn.

Avram is the grateful recipient of grants from USArtists International  (2022), New Music USA (2023), and Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2024).

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Performances

New York Venues

Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall, Apollo Theater, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Symphony Space, Museum of African Art, Harlem Studio Museum, Rubin Museum, BRIC Arts, Birdland, Knitting Factory, The Jazz Standard, Blue Note, BAM, Tonic, The Stone, Iridium, Roulette, Highline Ballroom, SOB’s, Zebulon, Barbes, Shapeshifter Lab, CBGB’s, Firehouse Space, Bitter End, Poisson Rouge, Zinc Bar, NuBlu, Fat Cat, The Living Theater, Joe’s Pub, Central Park Summerstage, ICO Gallery, Gagosian Gallery, Rockwood Music Hall, Zurcher Gallery.

Festivals

Willisau Jazz Festival, Saalfelden Jazz Festival, Leibnitz Jazz Festival, Zagreb Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, What is Jazz Festival, JVC Jazz Festival, Knitting Factory Festival, Vision Festival, Heineken Jazz Festival, Texaco Jazz Festival, Clean Feed Jazz Festival, Ljubjana Jazz Festival, Villach Jazz Festival, Cadence Music Festival, Earshot Jazz Festival, Sant’Anna Aressi Jazz Festival, Novara Jazz Festival, CIMP Festival, Son D’Hivers Festival, Banlieau Blues, Somewhere Else Festival, Winter Jazz Festival, BRIC Jazz Festival, Carnegie Hall Afro-Futurism Festival

Tours

USA, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Austria, Lithuania, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands, England, Japan, Djibouti, Israel, Morocco, Finland.

PERFORMANCES WITH:

Archie Shepp, Amiri Baraka, Marc Ribot, Yoshiko Chuma, Sunny Murray, Barry Altschul, Saul Williams, Reggie Washington, David Murray Big Band, Tony Allen, The Mingus Big Band, Michael Bisio, William Parker, Jean Jacques Avenal, Eric Revis, Chad Taylor, Roy Campbell,Bobby Few, The Last Poets, John Tchicai, Graham Haynes, Butch Morris, David Gilmore, David Fiuczynski, Dougie Bowne, Ben Allison, Steve McCraven, Frank Lacy, Jay Clayton, Newman Taylor Baker, Horace Parlan, Brandon Ross, Essiet Essiet, Alan Silva, Dennis Charles, Matt Wilson, James Hurt, John Betsch, Cheik Tidiane Seik, Joseph Bowie Big Band, Paulo Fresu, BriseWassy, Jack Gregg, Nat Reeves, Jeff Tain Watts, Karl Berger, Kirk Lightsey, Francis M'bappe,Herb Robertson, Steve Swell, Famoro Diabate, Abou Sylla, Abdoulaye Diabate, Mark Helias, Vincent Segal, Fred Hopkins, Aruan Ortiz, Gerald Cleaver, Warren Smith.

Resonant Sculpture Project

(Solo Interactions w/ Sculptures of Richard Serra)

• Gagosian Gallery, NY (2014) w/ Richard Serra’s Inside Out

• Gagosian Gallery, London (2015) w/ Richard Serra’s Backdoor Pipeline

• Princeton Art Museum, NJ (2015) w/ Richard Serra’s Hedgehog and Fox

• Gagosian Gallery, NY (2016) w/ Richard Serra’s NJ-1

• Gagosian Gallery, London (2017) w/ Richard Serra’s NJ-2

• Gagosian Gallery, Paris (2022) w/ Richard Serra’s Transmitter

• Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2024) w/ Richard Serra’s Matter of Time

Film, Theater, Television

• Streetcar Named Desire – Dir. Ivo Van Hove – New York Theater Workshop 1999

• Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song – Dir. Melvin Van Peebles – BRIC, NY

• Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song – Dir. Melvin Van Peebles - Sons D’Iver, Paris, 2009

• Louis C.K. – HBO TV series – contributed music for 2 episodes 2011

• The Hunt for the Runaway Song – Swedish Jazz Documentary –by Kjell-Ake Olsson

• Conan O’Brian Show – NBC – Jazz sketch 1996