Guest Artist Bios
Laura Ortman
A soloist musician, composer and vibrant collaborator, Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) creates across multiple platforms, including recorded albums, live performances, and filmic and artistic soundtracks An inquisitive and exquisite violinist, Ortman is versed in Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, and often sings through a megaphone. She is a producer of capacious field recordings.She has collaborated with artists such as Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, Okkyung Lee, Jeffrey Gibson, Caroline Monnet, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Martha Colburn, New Red Order, and Martin Bisi
Laura has performed at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, Venice Biennale, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, MASS MoCA, MCA Chicago, REWIRE Festival at the Hague, Baltimore Museum of Art, The Stone, SF JAZZ, Gagosian, The New Museum, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, MoMA PS1, Toronto Biennial of Art, Borealis Festival, CBGB's, Skaņu Mežs in Latvia, Pioneer Works, Roulette Intermedium, DIA Foundation, Calder Foundation, Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) and Centre Pompidou, Paris, among countless established and DIY venues in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe
In 2008, She founded the Coast Orchestra, an all-Native American orchestral ensemble that performed a live soundtrack to Edward Curtis’s film In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), the first silent feature film to star an all-Native American cast that premiered at the Margaret Mead Film Festival in NYC and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D C to sold-out audiences
Ortman is the recipient of the 2026 Native Performing Arts Fellow, 2025 Pioneer Works Music Residency, 2023 Institute of American Indian Arts Fellowship, 2022 Forge Project Fellowship, 2022 United States Artists Fellowship, 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists, 2020 Jerome@Camargo Residency in Cassis, France, 2017 Jerome Foundation Composer and Sound Artist Fellowship, 2016 Art Matters Grant, 2016 Native Arts and Culture Foundation Fellowship, 2015 IAIA’s Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Social Engagement Residency, 2014-15 Rauschenberg Residency, and 2010 Artist-in-Residence at Issue Project Room Ortman was also a participating artist in the 2019 Whitney Biennial She lives in Brooklyn, New York
Quentin E. Baxter, a native of Charleston, SC, comes from a family of drummers with his mother leading the troupe “I’m unable to recall a moment in my youth void of having drums either at home or church ” Baxter’s unique skillsets have garnered a GRAMMY Award as producer/performer, in total 4 GRAMMY Nominations as producer/performer, the 2017 South Carolina Governor’s Award for the Arts, a City of Charleston Proclamation “Quentin E Baxter Day” – April 25, 2017, the 2017 College of Charleston Alumnus of the Year Award, the 2017 Eddie Ganaway Distinquished Alumni Award, and a 2017 Inductee to the Savannah Coastal Jazz Hall of Fame
Currently touring world-wide with GRAMMY Award winning Gullah sensation RANKY TANKY and multi-Grammy-nominated vocalist/composer René Marie, Baxter regularly performs many of the most prestigious venues and festivals, i.e., The Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Jazz at Lincoln Center (New York), SFJazz (San Francisco, CA), Joy of Jazz Festival (South Africa), Toulouse Jazz Festival (France), Umbria Jazz Festival and Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi (Italy), Savannah Jazz Festival, Savannah Music Festival, and, of course, Spoleto Festival USA (Charleston)
Baxter’s passion for world-wide performances is paralleled by his dedication to educate, promote, produce, and present world-class artists in his home town and neighboring regional communities As a testament, from 1997 to 2019 he served as Adjunct Professor of Jazz Studies at the College of Charleston and formed the production company Baxter Music Enterprises (BME, LLC) in 2004 He also serves as Musical Director of the Charleston Jazz Initiative (CJI), a multi-year research project that explore the jazz history and legacy of African American musicians from Charleston and other places in the Carolinas; founding board member of the Jazz Artists of Charleston (JAC); board member of both the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and Engaging Creative Minds; producer of numerous benefit concerts/auctions for Avery Research Center, Jenkins Orphanage, Halsey Gallery, Spoleto USA, and many other artistic organizations who share the same sentiment to enhance and enrich lives via art and music here in the Lowcountry From 2012-2015, BME, LLC teamed up with Sermet’s Downtown, LLC to create Charleston’s only “listening room ” experience, The Mezz – Charleston Jazz Bar Baxter is currently in the design/development stages of the Baxter Center for Music Performance, Education, and Production – a stand-alone structure designed and dedicated to the presentation and advancement of live music
Educated in the public schools of Charleston County and a graduate of the College of Charleston (Bachelor of Arts – Music Theory & Composition), Baxter cultivated his musical talents under “the wings” of regional legends/mentors Robert Ephraim, Oscar Rivers, Jr, Lonnie Hamilton III, George Kenney, Dr. David Maves, Teddy Adams, and Delbert Felix Baxter’s musical versatility has enabled him to work with other great artists including Monty Alexander, Ernest Ranglin, Wycliff Gordon, Fred Wesley, Houston Person, and Doug Carn
Baxter plays and prefers: Bearing Edge Drums (Custom), Sabian HH Cymbals, Gibraltar Hardware and Pedals, Remo Drumheads [Fiberskyn FA3 (batter), Ambassador Snare Side, Ebony Series (bottom/front)], Vic Firth Drumsticks, Brushes, and Mallets
Wu Man
Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso, Wu Man is a soloist, educator, and composer who gives her lute-like instrument which has a history of more than 2,000 years in China a new role in both traditional and contemporary music She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create global awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. Projects she has initiated have resulted in the pipa finding a place in new solo and quartet works, concertos, opera, chamber, electronic, and jazz music as well as in theater productions, film, dance, and collaborations with visual artists She has performed in recital and with major orchestras around the world, is a frequent collaborator with ensembles such as the Kronos and Shanghai Quartets and The Knights, and is a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble She has appeared in more than 40 recordings throughout her career, including the Silkroad Ensemble’s Grammy Award-winning recording Sing Me Home, featuring her composition “Green (Vincent’s Tune) ” She is also a featured artist in the 2015 documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and
the Silk Road Ensemble During the 2021-22 season, she and the ensemble toured the eastern U S with a program titled “Phoenix Rising,” marking the first tour under new Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens In 2021 and 2022 Wu Man was a leading faculty member for Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop.
Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa At age 13, she was hailed as a child prodigy and became a nationally recognized role model for young pipa players. She subsequently received first prize in the First National Music Performance Competition, among other awards, and participated in many premieres of works by Chinese composers She moved to the U S in 1990 and was awarded the Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University in 1998 She was the first Chinese traditional musician to receive the United States Artist Fellowship (2008) and the first artist from China to perform at the White House. In 2013, she was named Musical America’ s Instrumentalist of the Year and in 2021 she received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music Ms Wu is a recipient of the 2023 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), one of the United States’ most prestigious honors in folk and traditional arts. In 2023 she was additionally honored with the Asia Society’s Asia Arts Game Changers Award, an annual award presented in New York City which recognizes and honors artists and arts professionals for their significant contributions to contemporary art She is a Visiting Professor at her alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi'an Conservatories She has also served as Artistic Director of the Xi’an Silk Road Music Festival at the Xi'an Conservatory.