Idris Ackamoor Biography     idris ackamoor ensemble | music samples | buy cd's

IDRIS ACKAMOOR is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, actor, tap dancer, director, and producer. He is the Founder and Executive/Co-Artistic Director of the San Francisco performance company, Cultural Odyssey, which is over twenty-five years old. Idris' primary instrument is the alto saxophone. An accomplished tap dancer, Idris’ signature performance is his uncanny ability to combine tap dancing with playing his saxophone simultaneously: a one-of-kind act!

For close to twenty years Idris and his partner actress Rhodessa Jones (Jones & Ackamoor) have developed over a dozen original duet productions that have toured throughout the United States, Japan, and Europe receiving critical and audience acclaim as well as numerous awards for their innovative interdisciplinary work. The Duet has performed at such prestigious venues as La Mama Theater and the Public Theater in New York City, Yale Repertory Theater, in New Haven, Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, and the National Black Theatre Festival. Idris has also performed with percussionist Don Moye of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones, writer/poet Ntozake Shange, tenor saxophonist Chico Freeman and many others.

Idris has received many awards for his work. In November 2003 he was presented with a "GOLDIE Lifetime Achievement Award" presented by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In May 2003 he was awarded a Business Arts Council Award for Non-Profit Excellence. In June 2002 Idris was awarded an Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theater. In December 2000 he was awarded a San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to improving the life in the Bay Area. In New York during November 1999 he received a prestigious AUDELCO Board of Director's Award "For 20 years of dedication in creating, producing and presenting original Theatre Performance Art". In August 1998 he was awarded the Black Theatre Network's Presidential Pathfinder Award to honor his contributions to the field of performance. In December 1995 Idris received New York City's 23rd Annual AUDELCO Awards for "Best Male Performer in a Musical" and "Musical Production of the Year" for his performance of "Shoehorn!” Idris has also received a prestigious New York"BESSIE" for his compositional score and direction of Rhodessa Jones' one-woman show, "Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women. He is also the recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts Grants in jazz performance and composition, and several San Francisco Art Commission Individual Artists Awards.

Idris released his third CD entitled, "Homage To Cuba", during the fall of 2004. In January 2000 Idris released his second jazz CD entitled, "Centurian", the follow-up to his critically acclaimed premiere 1998 CD entitled, "Portrait". Idris has also composed for many theater, film, and dance companies.

During November 2001 Idris was a Keynote Speaker and featured performer at the Black Artist Alliance Conference in Manchester, England. In September Idris performed at the 4th Annual International Tap Dance Human Rhythm Festival touring to 3 cities in Holland. Following the festival he performed with his jazz quartet and as a solo artist at European jazz clubs and cultural centers. During August 2001, Idris presented his fifth production of the "New Performance in Black Theater Series" for the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The series featured some of the leading black performers in America.

During the winter of 1999, Idris performed a featured role in the Penumbra Theatre of St. Paul, Minnesota production of "Indigo Blues", written by Judi Ann Mason. In March of 1998 he was selected as one of 45 of the nation's leading theater professionals to attend the National Black Theatre Summit: On Golden Pond, convened by the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright August Wilson and Dartmouth College. During the summer of 1996 Idris toured Japan performing his unique act of playing saxophone and tap dancing simultaneously.

Since 1976 Idris has been registered as a writer and publisher with Broadcast Music Inc. and has registered over fifty musical compositions that are published through his publishing company, Aomawa Music. Idris has composed for theater, dance companies, video/film productions, and student ensembles. The theaters he has composed for include Cultural Odyssey, Penumbra Theater in St. Paul, MN. the Lorraine Hansberry Theater in San Francisco, La Mama Theater in New York City, among others. He has composed for Dimensions Dance Company, dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones, and dancer Robert Henry Johnson. He also composed music for the score of the documentary Tongues Untied by the late filmmaker Marlon Riggs.