Final 2019 Jazz in Progress Concert at TPAC in April

BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center Presents

Jazz in Progress: The Next Faces of Jazz 

Featuring Jonathan Barber and Vision Ahead, Finalists from the 2018 

DCJazzPrix Emerging Band Competition

New York, NY -- The BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center is proud to present the final concert in our 2018-2019 Jazz in Progress series, featuring winners and finalists from the DC Jazz Festival’s DCJazzPrix emerging band competition. Jonathan Barber and Vision Ahead will perform on Saturday, April 27 at 7:30PM.


Tickets are $21 (students/seniors $11).  The performance will be held at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street (Between Greenwich and West St.).  To purchase tickets, call Ticketing Services at (212) 220-1460. Tickets can also be purchased by visiting our website at http://tribecapac.org or by visiting the Box Office at 199 Chambers Street, Tues-Sat from 12P – 6P.


Jazz in Progress: The Next Faces of Jazz is a partnership between BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center and the DC Jazz Festival.  DCJazzPrix, part of DC Jazz Fest, is a global competition created to recognize and support top rising jazz band talent, and is designed to help launch and promote the careers of emerging jazz ensembles. For more information on DCJazzPrix, please visit https://dcjazzfest.org/dcjazzprix.


Jonathan Barber and Vision Ahead
Saturday, April 27 at 7:30pm

Jonathan Barber (Drums)
Matt Dwonszyk (Bass)

Taber Gable (Piano)

Lucas Kadish (Guitar)

 Immanuel Wilkins (Alto Saxophone)


Jonathan Barber and Vision Ahead are the First Runners-Up of the 2018 DC Jazz Festival’s DCJazzPrix Emerging Band Competition. Based in New York City and formed by drummer Jonathan Barber, Vision Ahead debuted as a quintet in January 2017, performing at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola.  Vision Ahead means to carry on a legacy forward, striving to break through barriers, reaching towards your goal. This band’s hope is to spark a fresh musical style that is relevant with today’s generation.

Named Modern Drummer’s “#1 Up-and-Coming Drummer of 2018,” the powerhouse, Hartford-born drummer Jonathan Barber initially fell in love with the instrument by watching his father perform in the family church. His upbringing in the church instilled in him a passion for gospel music and he later became attracted to jazz through the music of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, drummers Tony Williams, Max Roach, Roy Haynes and Art Blakey and the Hartford-based alto sax great Jackie McLean, who headed the jazz department of the Hartt School of Music, where Barber studied. Since relocating to New York City, he’s worked with the likes of pianists Kenny Barron and Harold Mabern, bassist Buster Williams, trumpeters Jeremy Pelt, Nicholas Payton and Wallace Roney, saxophonist J.D. Allen, Marcus Strickland and Abraham Burton. Barber’s debut as a leader, 2018’s Vision Ahead, firmly established the 28-year-old drummer as a leader and composer in his own right as well as a highly respected player. Offering a fresh blend of classic jazz with elements of gospel, rock, soul and fusion, Vision Ahead is the first step in what promises to be a stellar career. Jonathan Barber was most recently listed by Paste Magazine as one of “12 New Artists to Watch in 2019.”

BMCC Tribeca PAC is Downtown Manhattan’s premier presenter of the arts, reaching audiences from the college community, downtown residential and business communities, local schools, families, and audiences of all ages.   BMCC Tribeca PAC strives to present a broad global perspective through the presentation of high-quality artistic work in music, theatre, dance, film and visual arts. BMCC Tribeca PAC is located on the Borough of Manhattan Community College campus, 199 Chambers Street (between Greenwich Avenue & West Street) and is convenient to the 2/3, A/C/E and R subway lines and the New Jersey Path Train.  For more information please visit our website.