Composer/performer Ig Henneman celebrates her twenty-fifth anniversary as a composer/bandleader and her sixty-fifth birthday this year. As part of the celebration, coming December she will be touring with her new international Ig Henneman Sextet and playing two concerts at OTO. The first with the sextet and the second night joined by Gail Brand (trombone), Caroline Kraabel (sax/voice), Mark Sanders (drums) and Alex Ward (clarinet/guitar)

The compositions and improvisations in the sextet concert program include homages to some of her artistic soul-mates including Thelonious Monk, Emily Dickinson, Jimmy Giuffre, Ian Dury, Galina Ustvolskaya, Misha Mengelberg, Morton Feldman and Francesco Landini.

This anniversary tour is a celebration of the pivotal moments in Ig Henneman's career as composer/violist/bandleader in both the modern classical music and improvisation worlds and includes a select group of musicians that Ig regards as musical kindred spirits.

In her own words, Ig sees this project as another step forward. "I have worked for years with the Henneman String Quartet and I feel like it's time for a new band. This anniversary is a good reason to form a new group. Through the years, I have met many musicians but few kindred spirits. The new Ig Henneman Sextet consists of kindred spirits that I have built a history with and one newcomer. They are Ab Baars on saxophone, clarinet and shakuhachi, my partner in life and work; Wilbert de Joode on bass, my soulmate in all the years I've spent as a band leader; the Queen Mab Trio, Lori Freedman on bass clarinet and Marion Lerner on piano, from Canada, with whom I’ve played many beautiful concerts in the last eight years; and as “newcomer,” the Berlin trumpettist Axel Dörner. I have also known him for years and see this as the right time to invite him into the sextet."