On his mesmerizing new album, Camera Obscura, the imaginative saxophonist and composer Felipe Salles takes perspective as the guiding principle for an ambitious project that melds jazz and chamber music. This expansive sonic palette offers Salles a means of experimenting with the effects and interplay of light and darkness, shadow and color, imagery and divergent perspectives – the camera obscura, after all, doesn’t replicate its source material exactly, but mirrored and flipped upside-down.

“A camera obscura projects an image that is not exactly reality,” Salles explains, “but is made out of light and shadows and perspective. I wondered, ‘How do I take that and make it into a song?’ So all of the tunes on the album come from a variety of different perspectives and play with the contrast between light and darkness.”

Salles brings a 14 piece chamber jazz ensemble to the stage for the first time at Bombyx, featuring a jazz quartet, string quartet and woodwind sextet.

Felipe Salles, soprano and tenor saxophones, flute, alto flute.
Nando Michelin, piano
Keala Kaumeheiwa, bass
Steve Langone, drums

The Cushman Quartet:
Laura Arpiainen, violin
Sarah Briggs, violin
Anton Boutkov, viola
Dave Haughey, Cello

Woodwind Sextet:
Emma Kucich, piccolo
Aidan Higgins, flute
Sarah Galgano, alto flute
Mikayla Farmer, bass flute