Nasar Abadey
Nasar Abadey founder, leader and driving force of SUPERNOVA®, performs music from the threshold of Jazz to beyond space and time, while having an artistic license to express his compositions through traditional African rhythms, bebop, fusion, modal, and free form. The band’s musical inspirations include, but are not limited to John Col-trane, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and many more. Abadey began playing drums at age five, drawing influences from powerhouse drum-mers such as Tony Williams, Max Roach, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, and cousin Frankie Dunlop, to name a few.
SUPERNOVA’s® debut CD, Mirage, was released on Amosaya Records, and his sophomore CD, Diamond In The Rough, was released on DPC Records. SUPERNOVA® was selected by the US State Department and Lincoln Center as Am-bassadors to tour with the American Music Abroad Rhythm Road; where they toured for one month to five countries in East Africa: Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Mozambique.
Abadey has performed with many Jazz greats internationally and his credits include: Amiri Baraka, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Rouse, Gary Bartz, David Sanchez, Cyrus Chestnut, Gregory Porter, Joe Ford, Sonny Fortune, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Kenny Kirkland, Gary Thomas, Stanley Turrentine, Sun Ra, Frank Morgan, Bobby Hutcherson, Pharaoh Sanders, Russell Malone, Malachi Thompson, Andrew White, and others.
Abadey has served as Music Panelist for DC Commission on the Arts; National En-dowment for the Arts (NEA), and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, respectively. He also served as a Board Member of the Washington DC Area Lawyers for the Arts, (WALA) for ten years. In 2018 the DC Jazz Festival presented Nasar Abadey with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Kennedy Center, and in September, 2017 the United Black Community Organization of DC presented Mr. Abadey with the John Coltrane Black Classical Music, Living Legends in Music and Culture Award; The Capitol Hill Jazz Foundation honored him with the Jazz Leadership and Service Award; and the DC Legendary Musicians awarded him with the Community Service Award. Mr. Abadey was selected by Washington City Paper, Art Desk as D.C.’s Best Jazz in 2015-Artist of the Year Award; Best Drummer 2015: shared with, C.V. Dashiell and Savannah Grace Harris; Best Small Ensemble: Nasar Abadey’s Supernova; Best Large Ensemble (Washington Renaissance Orchestra) in 2014, and Best Drummer in Jazz 2011.
Nasar has appeared in various festivals including the San Remo (Italy), Montreal (Canada), Cap City (DC), Virgin Island (Caribbean), JVC (NYC), Morocco (Africa), Chi-cago Jazz Festival, Iowa City Jazz Festival, D.C. Loft Jazz Festival, Atlanta Jazz Festi-val, Mellon Bank Jazz Festival, (Philadelphia), The East Coast Jazz Festival, the Free World Jazz Festival (DC), International Children’s Festival (Seattle), Guatemala City Jazz Festival, Duke Ellington Festival, DC Jazz Festival, and the Mid Atlantic Jazz Fes-tival among others.
Currently, and for the past Eighteen (18) years, Mr. Abadey has been a Professor of Jazz Percussion, Jazz History/Analysis and Jazz Combo at the Peabody Institute, of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and he recently developed an online course curriculum for Jazz Analysis/History on the undergraduate and graduate level of study.
Abadey teaches music instruction privately, and conducts workshops in Washington, DC. and its neighboring cities. Nasar attended University of Buffalo, in NY; Howard University, UMGC, Maryland and the University of District of Columbia in Washington, DC.
Nasar Abadey and SUPERNOVA’s® musical presentation demonstrates an array of Colors, Textures and Grooves! Nasar Abadey endorses Sonor Drums, Sabian Cym-bals, Vic Firth Sticks and Remo Drumheads.
https://peabody.jhu.edu/faculty/nasar-abadey/
www.nasarabadey.com
nasar@nasasrabadey.com
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