The Mara Rosenbloom Trio
Mara Rosenbloom Piano & Composition Sean Conly Bass Chad Taylor Drums
Kicking off 2020 The Mara Rosenbloom Trio received Chamber Music America's Performance Plus Grant, with the support of The New York Community Trust & The Doris Duke Foundation. This grant offered the trio the opportunity to engage in 6 sessions with the legendary Amina Claudine Myers, to workshop music for a new "demo." The results were then picked up by Barcelona record label Fresh Sound/New Talent, resulting in the trio's second album release RESPIRATION, which drops internationally October 23, 2020!
“For many years I’ve been thinking about the incredible connection humans share in the instant of each breath we take - although I had no idea how increasingly urgent this awareness would become amidst the global pandemic & voices of the victims of racial violence,” says Rosenbloom.
“Every moment, I breathe in the same atmosphere that someone else has just breathed out, filter it through my body, and leave the result for the next person; my future depends on someone else’s past, and what I leave behind will be someone else’s future. On the most basic level, every breath is vital to my life, and every instant connects me to the life of others. To process this idea is to know deeply, that we humans must care for each other. With this record, like every record I’ve made preceding it, if I inspire anyone to come into this awareness, to put this caring out front, then I have succeeded.”
Rosenbloom's debut trio album Prairie Burn (Fresh Sound/New Talent) - is a suite that focuses more closely on intensely collaborative improvisation, inspired by the drama and ecology at the edge of the Great Plains where the Wisconsin-born Rosenbloom spent her formative years. Recorded in a single four-hour session at legendary Brooklyn studio Systems Two, it captures the spontaneity and intuitive interplay of Rosenbloom's trio with bassist Sean Conly and drummer Chad Taylor, who honed this material in concert over the course of a full year.
Rosenbloom compares the ecosystem of her prairie upbringing to the creative vibrancy of jazz improvisation and the vibrant inner workings of her trio: “I learned to appreciate the balance and constant buzz of a dense and diverse habitat sitting week after week in the prairie near my house. It was a place so busy with life, you could feel alone in the center of it all, and yet, a place so fascinating, eventually you couldn’t help but be pulled into its cycles,” she explains. “For the Prairie Burn set, I tried to compose a habitat: a series of pieces we could move through without stops, ideas that could grow side by side, or crowded one over another, a cycle in motion.”
The result is a fearless, unbridled, often feral yet extremely intimate and highly improvised performance. “Letting go of the written page is only letting go of the surface level. If we stay truly present and open, the vital elements, the intent, the emotion, how we each express ourselves individually, cannot be lost,” Rosenbloom affirms. “Deep roots will hold.”
“ONE OF THE TEN BEST JAZZ ALBUMS OF THE YEAR!” -LUCIDCULTURE
****4 ½ STARS! - DOWNBEAT
"...a trio recording of bristling provocation and full-bore group improvising...her strongest statement as a bandleader and her most dauntless effort as a pianist." GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO, THE NEW YORK TIMES
"The [Mara Rosenbloom] trio achieves an elusive chemistry and degree of spontaneous interaction that transcends mental boundaries." PETER MARGASAK, THE CHICAGO READER
“PUNK ROCK ENERGY…” – MIDWEST JAZZ RECORD
“"[Rosenbloom's] quantum leap into greatness. An absolutely feral, largely improvisational suite...unbridled ferocity and a remarkable chemistry...a true trio effort" - NEW YORK MUSIC DAILY
“…Midwest-cum-Borough scorcher and hopefully will help place Rosenbloom’s music centrally on the map.” - CLIFFORD ALLEN - THE NYC JAZZ RECORD
"...Rosenbloom has a probing and watchful style as an improviser, building cycles of implication and digression. Her trio, which pairs [Chad] Taylor with bassist Sean Conly, knows how to follow her lead; it's a band best experienced in long stretches, with undivided attention." - NATE CHINEN, WBGO (review of live performance at NYC Winter Jazzfest, Jan 2018).
FLYWAYS
Mara Rosenbloom Piano & Composition Anaïs Maviel Voice & Surdo Drum Rashaan Carter Bass
Available Nov 14!
Rosenbloom's ensemble, Flyways, began in 2018, initially bringing together vocalist, percussionist, and multi-instrumentalist Anaïs Maviel (2021-2022 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, 2022 NYFA Artists Fellowship, 2023 New Music USA’s Next Jazz Legacy) & acclaimed bassist Rashaan Carter (Wallace Roney, Marc Cary, Cindy Blackman).
The group's premier work, "I know what I dreamed" sets the text of one of Adrienne Rich's 21 Love Poems to melody, and extends it into a set length work, balancing composed narrative within a dynamic level of improvisation. The ensemble released their first record Murmuration into the pandemic in 2019 (Fresh Sound/New Talent). Despite an inability to tour, Downbeat Magazine remarkably praised the ensemble for it's "enormous tenderness," with other listeners noting their “extraordinary level of communal listening and intuitive response” (John Chacona, Let’s Call This).
In 2022 Rosenbloom was selected to receive Chamber Music America's Performance Plus Grant, this time pairing her ensemble Flyways with Artist-Educator Cooper-Moore. After a series of sessions with Cooper-Moore, the ensemble recorded at Figure 8 Studio in Brooklyn, and their latest recording Mutualism is set to be released Nov 14th, 2025 on Daily Music.
The ensemble takes its name from the migratory patterns of birds. “We humans have our annual patterns too,” says Rosenbloom, “like birds in migration, we’re always moving alongside each other, but clearly, we have so much to learn about co-existence. Mutualism is the big idea, that our interdependence is the key to our survival; that we can find ways to create mutually beneficial partnerships. That being said, this record is a zoom in on the very human trials and tribulations of that process - heartbreak, longing, confusion, and also elation, joy, curiosity, hope. Sometimes I watch the pigeons circle their route from one rooftop to another with my son, and I always tell him, “you know how they all stay together like that? They practice every day.”
True to Rosenbloom’s ideas about practice, the ensemble had the rare opportunity, with support from a Chamber Music America grant, to workshop their music in a series 6 sessions with Iconic improviser/composer/instrument builder/storyteller Cooper-Moore, a longtime mentor of Rosenbloom. “We shared meals along with ideas,” noted Rosenbloom, “a practice we continued after the sessions ended - meeting several times at Anaïs’s home in Harlem to continue talking, as well as playing. In New York City, that time is rare gift.”
Mutualism once again features virtuosic vocalist and dedicated multi-instrumentalist Anaïs Maviel on her customized surdo drum, and a combination of cymbals and Tibetan bowls, and welcomes rising star bassist and composer Jordyn Davis (Van Lier Fellowship, Jazz Leader Fellowship, Kennedy Center Cartography Fellowship).
‘The process is the prize,’ was a true wisdom that came from Cooper-Moore, relays Rosenbloom, “Meaning, it’s not some distant moment of perfection we’re working towards, but each and every moment we’re creating together, now, and now, and now that is a gift - that holds the possibility of everything. Like so much Cooper-Moore has said to me over the years, it’s a lesson that extends way beyond the music, and I do my best to take those words to heart.”
To date, Flyways has performed at New York City's annual Vision Festival, City of Asylum's Jazz & Poetry Festival, Jazz Erie, the historic Jazz Vespers Series at Saint Peter's Church, In Gardens Series, NYC, among other venues.
Watch/Listen to Flyways performance at New York City's 25th Annual Vision Festival HERE.
RECENT PRESS:
"Enormous tenderness." James Hale, Downbeat Magazine
"Révélation!" - Noadya Arnoux, Jazz Magazine, France
"[Rosenbloom], who never allows a moment to pass where a thoughtful musical passage is left undone, unspoken, revels in bass and surdo fills, which toss motifs over the edge, prompting her only to create further and beyond. This ensemble should be heard at Weill Recital Hall for full effect, its blending of postmodern classical music and organic improvisation carrying that much weight." - John Pietaro, The New York City Jazz Record
"A prodigiously expressive and immediate pianist...stunning" - Mel Minter, Speaking Musically
Shout out from the The New York Times!
Review from our PA Tour "...[an] extraordinary level of communal listening and intuitive response...bravely uncompromising music"
~ John Chacona, Let's Call This, Erie, PA
"Pianist Mara Rosenbloom Leads a Magically Hypnotic Trio at The Jazz Gallery" ~ New York Music Daily
Every
Mara Rosenbloom piano Barbara Majnarić voice
Croatian vocalist/researcher Barbara Majnarić, and Brooklyn, NY based improviser/pianist Mara Rosenbloom have come together to form the collaborative duo Every. Musically, their work draws from the depth of West Balkan vocal traditions and stories passed on through the centuries, while facing forward through the portal of spontaneous interaction and improvisation.
Both Rosenbloom and Majnarić have witnessed first hand how music creates social bonds that tether communities and generations, and have long focused on centering human connection in their work.
Majnarić and Rosenbloom premiere project presents songs from the Sevdah tradition (a lyrical form, which can be found in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia). These songs were written amidst Turkish occupation - war - and yet, they are songs which center humanity, offering a vital wisdom as valuable to our current time as it was to communities in the past: even as the threat of war surrounds us and we are bombarded with horrific pictures of destruction and media language which either numbs us, or incites us to join in the violence of war, these songs remind us that we can choose instead to center our ability to love, to see beauty, to care intimately for one another.
“I had the opportunity to learn these songs from Barbara aurally in close rehearsals; on recording, our arrangements emerged spontaneously - which is to say, although it might not appear so, the piano arrangements, layout of form, and other interactive elements are improvised," says Rosenbloom.
About Barbara Majnarić
Over the past decade, Majnarić has launched Ojkamine - a platform for research of intangible cultural heritage - through which she has been researching and archiving traditional singing styles across the region, singing communally with elders, and internalizing songs and practices often unheard beyond small villages. In recent years, she has given vocal workshops in Croatia, Poland, and France. Her performances with various singing ensembles have been featured on Polish Radio, and her mentor, internationally acclaimed Serbian singer Svetlana Spajić has called her “an extraordinary multifaceted artist...perceptive and intuitive.” She is a member of Donja Jeka, a Croatian - Polish band, whose music deals with research and interpretation of older styles of vocal traditions.
Listen to a sneak peak!
Mara Rosenbloom & Barbara Majnarić / Niz polje idu babo /
Siren Xypher Collective
Melanie Dyer / Kyoko Kitamura / Mara Rosenbloom
Siren Xypher is a New York City-based collective of three established performing composers Melanie Dyer (viola), Mara Rosenbloom (piano & voice) and Kyoko Kitamura (voice), presenting intricate original works which combine art songs, spoken words and free-flowing improvisation. Their love for, and extensive experience in, these musical genres generate deep sonic conversations full of humor, warmth, surprises and fire.
Debuting in early 2022, Siren Xypher has since performed in various music series including Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum Jazz Poetry Month and the InGardens series at Governors Island supported by Arts for Art and West Harlem Art Fund, and was featured on the BBC3 Freeness podcast “Peace Pieces“ with host Corey Mwamba praising their work as "stunning." Their recent live set at Ibeam Brooklyn, July 2025 was reviewed by The New York City Jazz Record as "open-armed, trans-genre and deeply improvisational," with writer Ariellla Stok noting, "The set glowed with spirit: not just freedom, but care. A music made in and for community, and one that didn’t pretend to resolve the unknown."
Siren Xypher is the production and curatorial team behind Brooklyn Free Spirit Festival of which Mara Rosenbloom serves as the artistic director, with Kyoko Kitamura and Melanie Dyer as production consultants and co-producers. Planning for the 3rd Annual Brooklyn Free Spirit Festival is under way!
For updates, please visit Siren Xypher Instagram. Group photos by Mariana Meraz / live photo by Libby Zaletal, Ibeam, Brooklyn 2025.
The Mara Rosenbloom Quartet
Mara Rosenbloom Piano & Composition Darius Jones Alto Saxophone Sean Conly Bass Nick Anderson Drums
"Rosenbloom renews the trite formulas of jazz with sparkling compositions that are both lyrically contemplative and rhythmically pulsating...This quartet plays music that renders believable the future of jazz. As both a player and composer, Rosenbloom is already singular and ahead of those players satisfied to reside in the dull water of familiar elements." Jakob Baekgaard, All About Jazz,
"This is tough, almost abrasive modern jazz, whose moments of lyricism or raw feeling are all the more powerful for taking no prisoners along the way..." Brian Morton, The UK Jazz Journal
"Pianist Mara Rosenbloom seemingly has a million catchy riffs and artfully employs them to share a personal circumscribed space but also to provide melodies for powerful improvisation. Both these aspects of her playing are wonderfully in evidence on Songs From the Ground. The seven self-penned tunes run the gamut from pensive soliloquies to earthy, blues-infused modern jazz...the Quartet uses its contrasting voices to tell fascinating stories." Elliot Simon, The New York City Jazz Record
“Many readers will not be familiar with the name or music of New York-based pianist, composer, arranger, and educator Mara Rosenbloom...I think we have just made a discovery equally important as the shape of a wheel...Rosenbloom's lyrical compositions and piano playing, working alongside Jones' soulful and emotional sax are matches made in heaven...The sounds captured on Songs from the Ground are not cluttered, each instrument has its own clearly defined place, there is no battling over who, why, where, when just an almost inbred synergy." Barry Wight, Costa News SPAIN
"Pianist Mara Rosenbloom suffuses artistic vision into each musical gesture—each corner and crevice—of her recent release, Songs from the Ground...an accumulated sum of highly musical moments that suggests the absolute clarity of an artistic aesthetic—the focus and direction of her musical voice are undeniable." Mark Lomanno, PhD, The Rhythm of Study-A blog for Improvising Jazz Communities
Other Folks Music (as a sideperson)
