Trumpeter Riley Mulherkar returns to Berlin to share work from his singular, sophisticated debut album, Riley. Cellist Rebecca Merblum opens the show.

Band Members:
Riley Mulherkar - Trumpet
Chris Pattishall - Piano/Sound Design
Barry Stephenson - Upright Bass
Jason Burger - Drums

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Riley Mulherkar is a founding member of the Westerlies and has played with everyone from Kenny Barron and Dee Dee Bridgewater to Anna Deavere Smith and Alan Cumming. In 2020, he received Lincoln Center’s prestigious Emerging Artist Award for his work as “an original bandleader, composer, arranger, educator, community activist and advocate for jazz and the arts.”

Mulherkar’s album Riley was hailed by DownBeat as “über hip, modern yet timeless…one of the best debut records to come out in a long, long time.” Riley is the sonically modern setting for Mulherkar’s vulnerable, melodious interpretation of the rich tradition with sound design shaped by producers Rafiq Bhatia and Chris Pattishall. Enveloping Mulherkar within a series of textured, intricately-crafted spaces, Bhatia and Pattishall train a cinematographer’s lens on the continuum of great old songs, as well as new Mulherkar pieces, which fit right into a radically bold audio framework for the emotional pronouncements of Mulherkar’s horn.

Mulherkar is an Edwards Artist and performs on Edwards trumpets.

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Rebecca Merblum is a cellist dedicated to chamber music in its many forms. She performs frequently as a guest with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and serves as the co-artistic director of the Kenya International Chamber Music Festival. She is a 2022/23 McKnight Fellowship grant recipient, a former MacPhail Center Artist-in-Residence in association with the Global Music Initiative, and a guest lecturer at the Longy School for Music in Alternative Spaces. She is widely recognized for her initiatives including "Cello Conversations" at the Weisman Museum (part of a Target Center residency), "Your Dance" with Springboard for the Arts, and the chamber music series Sound Dialogue with Fueled Collective.