Karl Blench: Open Source Timothy Jones, Jacqui Sutton, Axiom Quartet

• Karl Blench (B. 1981): Open Source:
• 1 Blench: Open Source: I. Lost Voice 05:10
• 2 Blench: Open Source: II. Opening: Remarkable 06:00
• 3 Blench: Open Source: III. What This Town Needs 02:15
• 4 Blench: Open Source: IV. Source Material 03:15
• 5 Blench: Open Source: V. Building Trade 04:48
• 6 Blench: Open Source: VI. Workout 03:56
• 7 Blench: Open Source: VII. Hitch 03:53
• 8 Blench: Open Source: VIII. Open Door 03:30
• Total Runtime 32:47

Info for Karl Blench: Open Source

Art has always had the power to reinforce the beauty, promise, and magnitude of spiritual devotion. With OPEN SOURCE, the Axiom Quartet and baritone Timothy Jones musically embody the First Congregational Church of Houston’s ethos of searching, openness and inclusion. Jacqui Sutton’s libretto takes inspiration from an archival interview with the church’s founders, and creatively unfolds as an everyman’s journey for belonging. Karl Blench’s score takes as its north star one of the hymns in the FCC Houston’s Hymnal, and uses it to deconstruct and amplify the inner world of both the traveler and the church. Taken together, the story, the music, and the performance travel the distance of a person seeking sanctuary, and finding it at the church’s open door; where multiple cultures and beliefs are not just welcomed, but celebrated.

Timothy Jones, baritone
Jacqui Sutton, librettist
Axiom Quartet

Timothy Jones
A native of Shreveport LA, Timothy Jones has earned acclaim as one of the leading baritones of his generation, praised for his commanding vocal presence, intelligent musicianship, and rare ability to forge deep connections with audiences. Equally at home on the opera and concert stage, in chamber music, or recital, he has been celebrated across North and South America and Europe for his versatility and artistry.

Jones has appeared with major orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and Utah Symphony, performing repertoire ranging from Bach’s Passions to Verdi’s Requiem and Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. His opera credits span roles such as Germont in La Traviata, Don Giovanni, Alidoro in La Cenerentola, and multiple portrayals in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. On the recital stage, he has collaborated with esteemed pianists including Brian Connelly, Warren Jones, Craig Hella Johnson, and Howard Watkins, and has appeared at venues from Lincoln Center to international festivals in Europe and Latin America.

A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Jones has premiered numerous works and championed living composers such as Kevin Puts, Robert Nelson, and Derek Bermel. He is closely associated with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, where he helped premiere Puts’ Einstein on Mercer Street to critical acclaim. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, and he has recorded art songs in Sweden.

In addition to his performing career, Jones serves as Professor of Voice at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, where he mentors the next generation of singers with the same artistry and dedication that define his performances.

Renowned for both theatrical flair and vocal finesse, Jones continues to captivate audiences with performances that are as intellectually engaging as they are emotionally powerful.

Jacqui Sutton
is a genre-creating composer, librettist, arranger, bandleader, and vocalist. In 2010 she formed the nine-member Houston-based Frontier Jazz Orchestra, a band that blended predominantly jazz and bluegrass vocal and instrumental music, launching Frontier Jazz — where jazz meets the American frontier — as her own genre. Sutton produced two commercial releases of cover songs introducing the Frontier Jazz sound: Billie & Dolly (2010), and Notes from the Frontier (2012), both of which debuted in the Top 20 CMJ Jazz charts.

In 2017, Sutton was awarded a $10,000 grant by the Houston Arts Alliance to compose original Frontier Jazz works. The result was the 2018 two-day world premiere of Un-Cross Talk, a multimedia experience of Frontier Jazz through songs, instrumental scores, on-stage sculptures, projected images, and audio interviews with music historians and jazz musicians. As a multi-media experience, Un-Cross Talk invited audiences to not “cross talk” over our differences, but to “un-cross talk” long enough to appreciate the cultural commonalities shared by urban (jazz) and rural (bluegrass) Americans.

In 2022, Sutton was commissioned to write an original libretto for the First Congregational Church of Houston, in collaboration with Axiom Quartet, to express the church’s origin story and ethos. The result was Open Source (a theology built on the voices of many). Open Source was brought to life by composer Karl Blench, who wrote it for string quartet and bass-baritone. It premiered at the First Congregational Church of Houston in 2023, performed by Axiom Quartet, and sung by Timothy Jones. Open Source has enjoyed repeat performances since its debut.

Sutton is currently writing her first album of original songs titled Bald; songs where she answers raw questions about herself after losing her hair to alopecia. Bald covers the territories of desire, depression, sex positivity, and the joy that comes with self-acceptance. Sutton is also writing her first musical, Turnstiles, which asks the question: Can Americans escape the predictable cycles of whitelash that come with multiracial progress? Turnstiles takes place in Wilmington NC, and time travels between present day and 1898, the year of the notorious Race Massacre that wiped out its burgeoning Black community. Turnstiles is the narrative follow-up to Un-Cross Talk, as a way to illustrate the power of coalitions across culture, and to recognize the forces determined to keep Americans pitted against one another.

Sutton has twice been a composer in residence at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2019 and 2023), where she worked on the early stages of Turnstiles. Sandwiched between her initial foray into music in her early 20s, and her current devotion to Frontier Jazz, Sutton performed for two decades as a theater actor, alternating between Shakespearean and contemporary theater, as well as dance and musical theater.

Sutton was a 2024 cohort member of the Beth Morrison Projects Producer Academy and is a full member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Axiom Quartet
Known for their drive to interact with audiences and present programs that feature or combine the classical string quartet repertoire, new and exploratory music, pop genres, and global music, the American Prize-winning Axiom Quartet creates uniquely engaging concert experiences. Behind this flexibility is the belief that by treating a diversity of music and styles with thorough artistry, personality, curiosity, and intensity, Axiom can bring together listeners from all walks of life to enjoy an experience that reaches out to all. As a result, many of Axiom’s season concerts are sold out, including tours of China and the U.S. Midwest, rural and urban concert spaces across the South, and unconventional venues like the Cave Without a Name. A designated 501 (c)(3) organization, Axiom is also embedded in engagement and education, giving dozens of performances and workshops in public schools, assisted living/retirement facilities, libraries, and parks as Community Education Partners for Chamber Music Houston and recipients of multiple Houston Arts Alliance grants.

Booklet for Karl Blench: Open Source