Join us on September 19 for A History of Music: A Play Without Words in Four Acts —an immersive new work directed by Grammy Award-winning composer and saxophonist Kebbi Williams who will perform alongside an acclaimed cast of musicians and movement artists. Set in the Hambidge landscape, this multidisciplinary experience blends music, movement, and nature in a powerful exploration of the evolution of sound and instruments through time. Inspired by Kebbi’s 2022 residency at Hambidge, the performance features original compositions. Featured artists include Simone Baron, Marquinn Mason, Stefan Ringer, Dashill “Dash” Smith, Jaha “JJBEY” Smith, Luciana Arias, Sabastian, and Grace Kisa. The performance and accompanying residency is sponsored in part by the NEA, National Endowment for the Arts.
The matinee performance will take place from 2:00–4:00 PM, followed by a dessert reception for Patrons & Sponsors. General admission tickets are $40 each, while Patron tickets are $125 and include access to the post-performance reception.
Guests may also extend the experience with one of eight limited overnight stay packages available as ticket add-ons, including two-night stays in Dog Trot rooms ($400) or Lodge rooms ($350). Overnight accommodations are for Friday and Saturday nights and include continental breakfast on Saturday and Sunday morning.
ABOUT KEBBI WILLIAMS
Grammy Award–winning tenor saxophonist Kebbi Williams is an Atlanta-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, arranger, and educator whose adventurous approach defies categorization. Blending genres through improvisation, his performances and compositions are unmistakably his own. Williams earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Jazz Studies from Howard University and received DownBeat magazine’s Jazz Instrumental Soloist Award while still in college. He has performed and recorded with artists including OutKast, Donald Byrd, CeeLo Green, Mos Def, Meshell Ndegeocello, Betty Carter, and Jeff “Tain” Watts. An original member of the Grammy Award–winning Tedeschi Trucks Band, Williams continues to tour and create work rooted in experimentation and collaboration.
ABOUT HISTORY OF MUSIC COLLABORATORS, CO-PERFORMERS, AND ARTISTS
Accordionist, pianist, composer, improviser, and instigator Simone Baron creates music celebrated for its “living, breathing vitality and exquisite nuance” by The Washington Post. Moving fluidly across genres, their work explores dreams, somatic empathy, and transformation through an approach JazzTimes describes as “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations.” Baron studied at Oberlin Conservatory and Tel Aviv University and has developed their practice through performances, festivals, and residencies across Europe and the Americas. They have received support from South Arts, Chamber Music America, the Banff Centre, Hambidge, Art Omi, and the Sacatar Foundation, among others. Current projects include the chamber-jazz ensemble Arco Belo, DeCollage trio, a transatlantic duo with clarinetist-composer Federico Calcagno, and the immersive multimedia solo work élégie.
Marquinn Mason is an Atlanta-based multi-instrumentalist and producer with roots in Augusta, Georgia. Specializing in tenor and alto saxophone, he is also an accomplished pianist and percussionist whose distinctive sound blends traditional jazz with hip-hop and house music. A graduate of North Carolina A&T State University, Mason has worked as a full-time musician since 2012. He curates the long-running Sunday Jazz Jam at Atlanta cultural hub Gallery 992 and has performed in more than 40 countries with British artist Kamaal Williams. His many collaborators include Stefan Ringer, Byron the Aquarius, Mausiki Scales, Russell Gunn and the Royal Krunk Jazz Orkestra, Jazzmeia Horn, Roy Ayers, Kebbi Williams, Lil John Roberts, and Wale.
Stefan Ringer is an Atlanta-based DJ, producer, songwriter, and multidisciplinary artist whose practice connects electronic music, funk, soul, and contemporary Black music culture. Working across recorded music, DJ performance, songwriting, and collaborative projects, he uses sound as a vehicle for storytelling, cultural exchange, and connection. Since 2011, Ringer has released work through FWM Entertainment and independent labels including Eglo Records, People’s Potential Unlimited, NDATL Muzik, Brownswood Recordings, and Touching Bass. His interdisciplinary approach is informed by studies in recording arts and digital video production. In 2023, he presented the artist talk Results May Vary at Detroit’s Underground Music Academy. His current project, The Human Voice, explores the expressive power of the voice as an everyday instrument.
Trumpeter, vocalist, and lyricist Dashill “Dash” Smith is a genre-fluid performer whose work draws from music and theater. Moving seamlessly among hip-hop, experimental jazz, fusion, funk, soul, Afrobeat, and the avant-garde, he brings an expansive and improvisational sensibility to the stage. Smith has appeared in productions at 7 Stages Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, and Theatrical Outfit and has performed extensively with renowned artists including Roy Ayers, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and Roy Hargrove. He leads several ensembles, including Biological Misfits and Omega Level, and collaborates regularly with Kebbi Williams across a wide range of forward-thinking musical projects.
Jaha “JJBEY” Smith, also known as Baba Jaha, is a percussionist, educator, and certified therapeutic drumming instructor whose practice is rooted in the spiritual and cultural traditions of West African rhythm. For more than 27 years, he has studied and performed rhythms originating in Mali, Guinea, and Côte d’Ivoire, beginning his training at the African American Cultural Center in Buffalo under Theresa Mingo and Youssou Lo. Central to his teaching is the “Swing,” a musical and oral tradition through which he shares lessons about unity, timing, and the value of every voice within a community. Smith also uses therapeutic drumming to help individuals and groups reduce stress, navigate trauma, sharpen cognitive focus, and experience rhythm as a source of connection and healing.
Luciana Arias is a choreographer and performer whose interdisciplinary practice brings together dance, sound, visual art, and theatrical staging. She studied Choreographic Composition with a concentration in Expressive Movement at Argentina’s National University of the Arts in Buenos Aires. Arias has performed with the Group for Experimentation in the Arts of Movement and the university’s dance company, and has worked as a choreographer, performer, and member of an Argentine opera ensemble. Her research has been presented at exhibitions, festivals, and conferences internationally. Since 2010, she has also created dance-for-camera projects screened at VideoDanzaBA in Argentina and at arts and Butoh festivals in Tennessee and North Carolina.
Sabastian is a facilitator and movement artist whose practice explores connection, embodied knowledge, and collective growth. Grounded in the belief that play inspires curiosity and curiosity makes growth possible, he creates experiences that examine the relationships between autonomy and authority, self and community, care and agency, and biology and spirit. Movement serves as his primary pathway for accessing knowledge beyond the purely intellectual and honoring the body’s inherent intelligence. Through the exchange of energy, information, sensation, and response, Wilson invites participants to move beyond chronic thinking toward critical thought and deeper connection. His practice ultimately embraces movement as a catalyst for personal, cultural, and spiritual transformation.
Grace Kisa is a Kenyan-born, Atlanta-based multidisciplinary artist and designer whose work explores identity, migration, and the interwoven stories of global cultures. Raised across Kenya, Ethiopia, Botswana, and the United States, she brings a “third culture” perspective to questions of home and belonging. Working in mixed-media sculpture, installation, painting, and costume, Kisa transforms found and recycled materials into symbolic forms that connect ancestral memory with contemporary experience. Drawing on African cosmologies, science, and the histories embedded in everyday objects, she creates imaginative worlds that bridge past, present, and future. Kisa has exhibited internationally for more than 25 years, including at the 2024 Venice Biennale. For this production, she is designing and fabricating original costumes for each of its four acts.