The New York Times called Stéphane Wrembel “perhaps the most creative improviser in Gypsy jazz today” — a guitarist whose music plays the long game between tradition and invention. His Rochester Concert Series, a four-night residency at Lovin’ Cup, opens Thursday with Terre des Hommes, his 2008 album, performed as the eleven-movement suite it was conceived to be.
About the Show
Terre des Hommes (the album and the evening) is organized around a structure Wrembel calls the Eternal Cycle: eleven movements that move from “A New Life” through “Apocalypse” and out the other side into “Back to the Light.” It is a through-composed suite, not a collection of pieces assembled for a set list, and experiencing it in sequence changes what any one movement means in isolation. The programming choice is a statement about the seriousness of what he’s working with.
Wrembel was born in Paris and raised in Fontainebleau — Django Reinhardt’s hometown, not incidentally. He spent six to seven years immersed in Sinti culture, studying with masters Angelo Debarre and Serge Krief, before graduating summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music in 2002. His music has expanded from that inheritance into jazz, classical, blues, flamenco, and rock; he describes the result as “beyond any one genre,” and the biographical record backs the claim. He composed “Bistro Fada” for Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning Midnight in Paris; its soundtrack won the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack. Wrembel performed the piece at the 2012 Academy Awards alongside Hans Zimmer. He has also scored Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival (2020) and played Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and The Town Hall. His 2024 recording Triptych, made with pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, drew notice from Downbeat and Guitar Player Magazine.
Thursday is the first of four consecutive nights at Lovin’ Cup, each built around a separate program. The series’ own framing: “each night opens a new universe and the guitar remains the guiding voice throughout.” “Origins” follows on Friday (Oct. 9), “Dreamers of Dreams” on Saturday (Oct. 10), and a Django Brunch on Sunday (Oct. 11) at noon.
Venue & Logistics
Lovin’ Cup is a bar and music venue at 300 Park Point Dr. in Rochester, with a capacity of 250. For a guitarist with Carnegie Hall credits, that scale is less a concession than a different instrument: a room where the dynamic range his technique is built around reaches the back of the house intact. The show starts at 8 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets are $30–$35. Buy tickets