Drummer and Composer Nasar Abadey is the founder, leader and driving force of SUPERNOVA®. His debut CD, Mirage was released in 2000 on the Amosaya Record Label, and a follow-up CD is planned to be released later this year (2006).
He has performed with Amiri Baraka, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Rouse, Gary Bartz, David Sanchez, Cyrus Chestnut, Sonny Fortune, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Kenny Kirkland, Gary Thomas, Stanley Turrentine, Sun Ra, Frank Morgan, Bobby Hutcherson, Pharaoh Sanders, Malachi Thompson and many others. Additionally, he has appeared in various festivals including, San Remo (Italy), Montreal (Canada), Cap City (DC), Virgin Island (Caribbean), JVC (NYC), Morocco (Africa), Chicago Jazz Festival, Iowa City Jazz Festival, D.C. Loft Jazz Festival, Atlanta Jazz Festival, Mellon Bank Jazz Festival, (Philadelphia), The East Coast Jazz Festival, the Free World Jazz Festival (DC), International Children's Festival (Seattle), Guatemala City Jazz Festival, among others.
Prior to forming SUPERNOVA® he was co-founder/leader, along with Joe Ford and Paul Gresham, of BIRTHRIGHT, and co-producer of two (2) albums, Free Spirits and Breath of Life. Abadey formed SUPERNOVA® to explore his compositional concepts through the many facets of African American classical music, i.e. Jazz.
Moreover, he plays a music, which he describes as MULTI-D, which is multi-dimensional and multi-directional. These many directions and dimensions are fields of realities that change according to density and vibration. Working within this paradigm, SUPERNOVA® exercises its artistic license to perform and explore this African American Classical Music, that includes, but is not limited to: traditional African rhythms, R&B, reggae, world, bebop, fusion, afro-Cuban, Brazilian, new age, free form, etc. These terms are mere labels representing polarities of one energy.
Abadey has been awarded grants for performance, merit and composition, by the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, the D.C. Commission for the Arts, Creative Arts Performance Services (CAPS), the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Prince George's Arts Council, respectively.
In addition, he has served as music panelist for the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, and the D.C. Commission for the Arts, and is a board member of the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA). In his own words Abadey says, "I feel most comfortable at the cutting edge of the music. It is there that I play past what I know so that my creativity is inspired from a higher source."
Though his travels have taken him to Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and throughout the USA, he still finds time to teach privately, while performing workshops and residencies in the Washington, DC and the surrounding public schools for Young Audiences, the Prince George's Arts Council, the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and Gateway CDC. NASAR ABADEY and SUPERNOVA®, Colors...Textures...and Groove!