Nora Stanley has been busy.

At MacDowell for her first residency, the multi-instrumentalist and composer is taking time out from nonstop session work, gigging and touring in one of MacDowell’s composition studios. She’s composing some arrangements of the late Joe Henderson’s music for an upcoming jazz festival and is beginning work on a second album of original music.

She’ll also open the MacDowell Downtown season with live music at The Monadnock Center for History and Culture, 19 Grove St. in Peterborough, on Friday, March 3, at 7:30 p.m.

“I guess you could call it a suite,” she said, explaining the SFJAZZ commission for the Joe Henderson Festival. “I’m hoping to finish what is a series of arrangements and compositions for saxophone, guitar, piano, bass and drums.”

Stanley said she is hoping to “bring a new lens to [Henderson’s] music by employing elements from other traditions like European classical and Afro-Caribbean music in addition to the jazz idiom.”

When not working on that commission, she’ll be creating new works for her jazz quartet’s second album. The first, recorded with keyboardist Benny Bock, is slated to be released later this year on Colorfield Records.

A native of Berkeley, Calif., Stanley “grew up with a very saturated musical experience” in her family’s home. Both parents shared their love for a wide variety of musical traditions, introducing Stanley at a young age to Balinese gamelan, American folk music, West African rhythms, jazz and European classical harmony. In college, as an Oberlin double major, her exposure to various musical styles expanded, and now all those styles live beneath the surface of her compositions.

“I knew I had to get to New York – where the music is – and get deeper into the more specific musical scenes that I was interested in exploring,” she said.

Joining a cohort of friends who had already set down roots in the Big Apple, Stanley threw herself into house shows and jam sessions. That exposure led to paying gigs and sharing the bill with musicians who were than able to recommend her for other gigs. Eventually, those opened the door to touring with the likes of Beth Orton. Stanley recently began performing with a New York gamelan group, her percussive instruments of choice being the gangsa and ketuk.

Since completing Orton’s tour last year, Stanley is focusing on composing modern jazz integrated with improvisational structures and elements from the indie rock music she grew up with.

“I’m trying to branch out in that realm, and it’s one of the things I’ll be focusing on while here,” she said. “The attempt is to write composed music, some of it rigorously composed, and yet leaving a lot of open space for improvisation.”

On Friday, Stanley will perform a selection of saxophone etudes after offering insight regarding her approach to writing music.

Jonathan Gourlay is senior manager for external communications at MacDowell.

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