Marty Ehrlich
Artist-in-Residence
One of the leading multi-instrumentalists in jazz today, Marty Ehrlich brings a dynamic expressionism to his concerts and musical associations. Ehrlich composed new music for his Dark Woods Ensemble and worked on an album with Boston composer Lee Hyla. He performed in three informal Gallery Improvisation concerts, including one in the Spanish Cloister, near Sargent’s great flamenco-inspired painting El Jaleo. Ehrlich also played in a Borromeo String Quartet concert with saxophonist Stan Strickland. He worked with students from the Farragut, Tobin, Boston Latin, and Lincoln schools. The first instrumentalist to appear in the Eye of the Beholder series, Ehrlich gave a talk called Change This Beauty, Beautify This Change: Reflections on Jazz in which he discussed why people make music, the power of music, the influences of musicians like John Coltrane, and the concept of "the very dangerously new."
As an ensemble leader, Ehrlich has made 25 recordings of his compositions performed by the Dark Woods Ensemble, the Traveler's Tales Group, and the Rites Quartet. Recent projects include a collaborative album, Trio Exaltation, released in 2018. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the New York City Opera, among others. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, the Peter Ivers Visiting Artist Residency at Harvard University, Clarinetist of the Year from the Jazz Journalist Association, and a Distinguished Alumni award from the New England Conservatory. He is currently an Associate Professor of Music at Hampshire College.