Drummer and composer Nasar Abadey is the founder, leader and driving force of SUPERNOVA^®. This band performs music from the threshold of Jazz to beyond space and time, while having an artistic license to express their compositions through traditional African rhythms, bebop, fusion, Afro-Cuban, Afro Brazilian, modal, and free form. The band’s musical inspirations include, but are not limited to, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and many more. Based in Washington, DC, Abadey has also built a solid reputation as a sideman with several groups, and has performed with many national artists throughout his career. Abadey began playing drums at age five, drawing influences from powerhouse drummers such as Tony Williams, Max Roach, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, and cousin Frankie Dunlop, to name a few. Nasar Abadey creates music which he refers to as Multi-D: multi-dimensional, multi-directional.

Nasar Abadey’s band SUPERNOVA’s^® debut CD, Mirage, was released on Amosaya Records, and his sophomore CD, Diamond In The Rough, was released on DPC Records. SUPERNOVA^® was selected by the US State Department and Lincoln Center as Ambassadors to tour with the American Music Abroad Rhythm Road. This one-month tour took them to five countries in East Africa: Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Mozambique. Abadey has performed with many jazz greats and has appeared in various music festivals internationally. His credits include: Amiri Baraka, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Rouse, Gary Bartz, David Sanchez, Cyrus Chestnut, Gregory Porter, Sonny Fortune, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Kenny Kirkland, Gary Thomas, Stanley Turrentine, Sun Ra, Frank Morgan, Bobby Hutchinson, Pharaoh Sanders, Russell Malone, Malachi Thompson, Andrew White, and others.

Abadey’s 11-piece SUPERNOVA^® Chamber Orchestra, which includes strings, was invited by Jason Moran to the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage to perform in recognition of International Jazz Appreciation Day. The Washington Renaissance Orchestra, Abadey’s 16-piece big band, premiered a concert at the historic Lincoln Theatre in Washington, DC, as a tribute to African American Music Month (June). Abadey often includes vocals with these ensembles, and is the founder and artistic director of both. On two separate occasions the Strathmore Mansion in Rockville, MD honored Abadey as the Artist in Resident (AIR) Mentor: first for vocalist Integrity Reeves and drummer Isabelle DeLeon; and the following year to mentor soul vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Dante Pope and  alto saxophonist Trey Sorrells.

Additionally, he has appeared in various festivals including the 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, Duke Ellington Festival, DC Jazz Festival, and the Mid Atlantic Jazz Festival among others.

Abadey is currently a faculty artist teaching Jazz Percussion in the Jazz Studies Department at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.