Who is Rhythm Quest

Rewards await those who tread here,” is what Modern Drummer had to say about Rhythm Quest’s debut album, Excursion, when it was released in 1997. Originally formed in 1995, this world percussion trio employing jazz values in contemporary world percussion contexts, has given performances and workshops at universities and colleges all over the Eastern U.S. including New York, University of Southern Illinois, Earlham College, and the Ethnomusicology Department at Indiana University.

”Music can connect people from vastly different cultures through a shared experience. When artists draw from global musical vocabulary and musical instrumentation, we create new spaces in which to meet one another, and opportunities for listeners with diverse cultural origins to have a shared experience.” – Julian Douglas Artistic Director

Known for their high energy performances and original approach to material development, they have been sought after collaborators and have co-created with many artists and companies including: Kyle Quass’s Jazz Ensemble, Organic Theory, The Windfall Modern Dance Company, a capella world vocal quartet, Vida, and served as part of the rhythm section for Blue Note recording artist, Greg Osby.

Rhythm Quest’s vision is to create and share music that draws on the global pallet of human music in a way that communicates something intimate and exotic, foreign, yet familiar to a broader and more diverse audience. In a time where some of us are talking about building walls, Rhythm Quest seeks to build bridges.

 

Rhythm Quest aspires to offer Music of the Earth – The listener will find a range of instrumentation and vocabulary, including concepts derived from jazz, Western and Indian classical, middle-Eastern, West African, and Afro-Cuban traditions. Each composition seeks to create a shared space bridging one (or often many) musical idioms to others in a way that honors the brilliance and beauty of tradition while seeking opportunities for contemporaneous discovery.

The music of Rhythm Quest seeks to disrupt assumption that traditional folk percussion instruments can not be used to create sophisticated art and that sophisticated art can not be feel raw, visceral, or inspire people to dance. Employing gravity, shape, contour, cycle, and texture like colors on a canvas, the compositions are explorations of complex rhythmic architecture realized in performance with elements of improvisation. The transmission goes beyond the technical and intellectual and leaves listeners feeling transported.

What Fans are Saying

extraordinary hand drummers! To be in the room when they play is an amazing, primal experience that everyone must have!!

What Fans are Saying

I was in awe at the talent these guys have, still am. Just wow!

What Fans are Saying

They were out of this world…

What Fans are Saying

Amazing performance

…awesome and exhilarating!

..fantastically inspiring!

…mesmerizing..

What Fans are Saying

if you have not experienced them live then you have not lived! The vibrations when they play permeate the room and wake up your DNA!

Michael Rutherford

Percussionist

Julian Douglas

Percussionist, Artistic Director

Bezl LaBonte

percussionist