Matana Roberts is the internationally acclaimed New York-based composer, jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, sound artist and visual artist of whom the music site Pitchfork has said: “One of the most exciting new spirits in contemporary music”.

Roberts is perhaps best known for his musical masterpiece Coin Coin, which is now up to four discs and which, via improvisation, spoken word and quotes from songs and anthems, examines history, memory and ancestry, not least from an American horizon.

Born in 1975 in Chicago, Illinois, Roberts grew up on the city’s South Side and studied classical clarinet. Roberts formed the trio, Sticks and Stones, with bassist Josh Abrams and drummer Chad Taylor. In 2002, Matana Roberts moved to New York and started as a street musician in the subway.

Matana Roberts works in many different contexts and several different media with music, visual arts, dance, poetry and theater. In the summer of 2015, Roberts was artist-in-residence at the Whitney Museum of American Art, producing a series of research-based sound works entitled i call america. The following summer, Roberts had a solo exhibition at the Fridman Gallery titled I Call America II.

“A unique, shape-shifting compositional voice” – LA Times

“Coin coin is a brilliant and deeply original project”.- LIRA