Zen Arts Ensemble set to perform free concert

2/16/2013

The Zen Arts Ensemble provides “an experience that is part avant-garde performance and part creative meditation,” it says in promotional materials. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, the ensemble will give a free performance at the Recital Hall at the University of Toledo’s Center for Performing Arts, 1910 W. Rocket Dr.

Directed by the Rev. Jay Rinsen Weik — who teaches jazz guitar in UT’s music school and is a Zen priest at the Great Heartland Buddhist Temple of Toledo in Holland — the ensemble uses Buddhist sutras and chance operations as inspiration for the music. The six-person group includes guitarist the Reverend Weik, bassist Norm Damschroder, percussionist Olman Piedra, and vocalists Kim Lynch Buehler and Denise Ritter-Bernardini, all of whom are members of UT’s music faculty, and violist Derek Reeves of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

For more information, go to the group’s Web site at www.zenartsensemble.org.