Meet Brother Ah

Composer, flautist & french horn player Brother AH (formerly Brother AHH, Robert Northern) was among the busiest session musicians of the '50s and '60s. He worked and recorded with numerous jazz stars, among them Donald Byrd, John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Sun Ra, DonCherry, McCoy Tyner, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and the Jazz Composers Orchestra, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Eric Dolphy, Max Roach, John Lewis, among many others.

As a leader he released an album with his Sounds of Awareness ensemble featuring Max Roach on the coveted Strata East label & later self released two exceptional blends of free jazz and cosmic afro soul on his Divine records imprint - Move Ever Onward& Key To Nowhere, respectively. All three of these recordings have been reissued on the locustside imprint, Ikef records. During an extended period living in New York in the late 1960s, AH tirelessly evangelized great black music as a dj on WBAI, organized radical concerts at WBAI's Free Music Store & tirelessly documented the energetic music around him. That motivation is as present today as it was decades ago in his involvement with the local & global artistic community. AH lives in Washington, D.C. and is the founder of the World Community School of Music. His live appearances are a rare & special treat.

Robert Northern is the musical director of the World Music Ensemble. He specializes in Wind Instruments, African Drums, and Percussions. His primary instruments are French Horn and Flute. Brother Ah brings together the best of African, American Japanese, European and Indian music.

The concept of "Global Village 2000" celebrates the emergence of a distinct expressions of each cultural style. The World Music Ensemble released its first compact disk entitled, "Celebration" in 1993.

He is the musical director of the "Sounds of Awareness". This musical collective utilizes music, dance, poetry, and the sounds of nature to inspire and raise individual levels of consciousness. The group also produces music for meditation, relaxation and healing.

As a lecturer and instructor he taught at the Levine School of Music, Sewell Music Conservatory, D.C. public and private schools and lectures at Howard University, UDC, University of Maryland, Smithsonian Institution and Kennedy Center. He has also taught at Brown University in Rhode Island (9 years), Dartmouth College in New Hampshire (3 year), the New York City Public School system, The African Learning Center in Washington, D.C. and privately.

Brother Ah is a performer, educator, lecturer, composer and arranger both in Western and non-Western traditions. He has composed and directed numerous extended works including "Ode to Creation", "The Forces of Nature", and "Tribute to the Ancestors". Robert Northern (Brother Ah) as a French hornist has played and recorded with musical greats including Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Sun Ra, Dizzy Gillespie, Eric Dolphy, Max Roach, John Lewis and many more.

His classical performances include the New York Metropolitan Opera (stage band), George Solti, conductor; the Symphony of the Air, Leopold Stokowski; conductor; Radio City Music Hall Orchestra, Raymond Page, conductor; symphony orchestra in Vienna, Austria and West Germany and Broadway Theater orchestras in New York City. He has studied at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, the Vienna State Academy in Vienna, Austria and he is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C.