The Possible 4 ft. Vievee Francis

From Slovenia, Serbia, and just outside of Chicago, The Possible 4 is a never-before-seen collaboration between internationally acclaimed jazz artists Jure Pukl (saxophone), Vladimir Kostadinovic (drums), Marko Churnchetz (piano), and Harish Raghavan (bass).

Don’t miss your chance to witness these heavyweight talents tear up the Alphabet City stage, with different combinations of musicians and poets each night!

Featured Musicians:

Jure Pukl is recipient of the highest award of the Republic Slovenia for achievements in the arts (Nagrada Presernovega sklada 2015) and is one of the most prolific and creative saxophonists of the younger Slovene jazz generation. Pukl obtained university education abroad, he studied classical saxophone at the Vienna Music Academy, and jazz saxophone in Vienna as well as at the Haag Conservatory of Music. Pukl then won a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston USA, where he pursued his studies with masters such as Joe Lovano and George Garzone. He completed his masters degree in music at the Graz Academy of Music. His music has won him many awards; among others the 2005 first Jury Prize and Best Composition Audience Award at the Jazz on International Music Workshop and Festival in Novo mesto, Slovenia. In his auctorial projects, such as the Virus quintet (receive rave reviews, among others on the influential Allaboutjazz Web portal) Pukl dedicates himself to modern interpretations of jazz. What he creates is a unique type of modern jazz, avantgarde, free jazz and impressionistic contemporary music performed with a great deal of knowledge and love, giving prominence to the interplay between band members.

Vladimir Kostadinovic, award winning drummer (Tuscia in Jazz 2008 Italy, Jimmy Woode Competition) bandleader, composer & arranger is one of the Europe jazz music scene’s most sought after drummers, started his musical education at the age of five when he began studying classical accordion and drums.  Drums has always been his real love and he wanted to pursue it, with a passion! Vladimir ranks high among drummers who are versatile and savvy enough to play different styles of music, as a sideman and with his own projects. In August 2009 he was invited to perform with a master of organ hammond B3 Tony Monaco. During that time Vladimir also formed his own quartet with Jimmy Greene, Danny Grissett and Matt Brewer which featured his own compositions. In 2009 he went into the studio in New York with his band and recorded his first CD “COURSE OF EVENTS”. Shortly thereafter he joined the band Antonio Farao Trio, with whom he is currently playing and traveling all over Europe. Vladimir also recorded his second album as a leader “THE LEFT SIDE OF LIFE” live at the Generations Jazz Festival in Frauenfled Switzerland, which was released for one of the most prestigious jazz record labels in Europe ENJA Records. ​He published 2 CD’s under his own name and received rave reviews all over the globe among others in the influential Modern Drummer, Jazz Times, Jazzthing, Jazzpodium and All about jazz Web portal, etc. In last few years, Vladimir has also gone on to put his musical talents to work. He is currently writing music for his upcoming album and continues to headline concerts internationally.

After arriving in New York in 2007, bassist Harish Raghavan has begun to make a name for himself among the rising stars of his generation.  Raghavan grew up in Northbrook, Illinois, just north of Chicago. At age eight he began studying Western and Indian percussion, and later switched to the double bass at seventeen. He studied bass with John Clayton at the University of Southern California and also with Robert Hurst. During his years in Los Angeles he recorded and played with many legendary West Coast musicians. In 2009 he was a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Bass Competition. Raghavan is a regular instructor at the Stanford Jazz Workshop and the Jazz at Centrum summer program in Port Townsend, Washington. He is featured on pianist Taylor Eigsti’s 2010 Concord release, Daylight at Midnight.

Marko Churnchetz (Slovenian spelling Črnčec) is one of Slovenia’s most heralded contemporary musicians and renowned exports, based in New York City. On the international scene he is known as a formidable young multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and producer who easily works across genres and in particular jazz, classical and popular music. Churnchetz was born May 15, 1986 in Maribor, Slovenia and by the age of age six his musical path began by studying
 classical music on accordion and then piano at the age of ten. A prodigious talent, by his teens he was a multiple award-winner in both national and international competitions, and he earned a classical piano degree in 2005 as well as jazz piano degree at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz, Austria in 2009. Churnchetz has released five albums as a leader. His third highly critically acclaimed album Devotion (Whirlwind Recordings, 2014), featuring Mark Shim (saxophone), Chris Tordini (double bass) and Justin Brown (drums) was selected among 20 Best Jazz releases of 2014 by “All About Jazz”! Churnchetz’s latest album PLACE TO LIVE (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2019) features his outstanding jazz trio with Harish Raghavan on doublebass and Justin Brown on drums. On two tracks the trio is joined by vocalist Jonathan Hoard, who co-wrote the title song of the album. French “Jazz Magazine” called it “Revelation!”

Featured Poets: 

Vievee Francis is the author of three books of poetry: Blue-Tail Fly (Wayne State University Press, 2006), Horse in the Dark (winner of the Cave Canem Northwestern University Poetry Prize for a second collection, Northwestern University Press, 2016) and Forest Primeval (winner of the Hurston Wright Legacy Award and the 2017 Kingsley-Tufts Poetry Award). Her work has appeared in numerous print and online journals, textbooks, and anthologies, including Poetry, Best American Poetry 2010, 2014, 2017, and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. She has been a participant in the Cave Canem Workshops, a Poet-in-Residence for the Alice Lloyd Scholars Program at the University of Michigan, and teaches poetry writing in the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop (USA, UK, and Barbados). In 2009 she received a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, and in 2010, a Kresge Fellowship. She serves as an associate editor of Callaloo and an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH.

Ruth Awad is an award-winning Lebanese-American poet whose debut poetry collection Set to Music a Wildfire (Southern Indiana Review Press 2017) won the 2016 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and the 2018 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She is the recipient of a 2016 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, Poem-a-Day, The New Republic, Pleiades, The Rumpus, The Missouri Review Poem of the Week, Sixth Finch, Crab Orchard Review, CALYX, Diode, Southern Indiana Review, The Adroit Journal, Vinyl Poetry, Epiphany, BOAAT Journal, and elsewhere.

S. Brook Corfman is the author of Luxury, Blue Lace, chosen by Richard Siken for the Autumn House Rising Writer Prize, and two chapbooks: the letterpress Meteorites from DoubleCross Press and the digital collection of performance pieces The Anima from GaussPDF. Fordham University Press will publish their second collection in Fall 2020/Spring 2021 as the winner of their POL Prize, chosen by Cathy Park Hong. They are a poetry editor at Pinwheel and the recipient of grants and fellowships from Lambda Literary, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council; recent work has appeared in Conjunctions, DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, Muzzle, The Offing, Poem-a-Day, and Territory, among other places. Born and raised in Chicago, Sam now lives in a turret in Pittsburgh.

Lisa Summe was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, earned a BA and MA in literature at the University of Cincinnati, and an MFA in poetry from Virginia Tech. She is a member of  VIDA’s Web Team, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Juked, Smartish Pace, Lambda Literary, Salt Hill, Waxwing, Bettering American Poetry Vol. 2, and elsewhere. Her first full-length book, Say It Hurts, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in summer 2020. She is a certified health and wellness coach and lives in Pittsburgh, PA.