Acclaimed Jazz Artist to Perform at Scranton

Sep 18, 2009
Digital Image: (courtesy of G.F. Aquilino)The Wycliffe Gordon Quintet will perform at The University of Scranton's Houlihan-McLean Center on Saturday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m.
Digital Image: (courtesy of G.F. Aquilino)The Wycliffe Gordon Quintet will perform at The University of Scranton's Houlihan-McLean Center on Saturday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m.

        Performance Music at The University of Scranton will present The Wycliffe Gordon Quintet In Concert on Sept. 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the Houlihan-McLean Center. The concert is free and open to the public.
An award-winning trombonist, Gordon has had an extraordinary career as a performer, conductor, composer, arranger and educator.

        As a solo artist and member of the Wycliffe Gordon Quartet and Quintet, as well as a former member of the Wynton Marsalis Septet, The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and David Ostwald's Gully Low Jazz Band, Gordon has performed in venues throughout the world and has recorded with many of the world's greatest musicians. He has recorded 14 solo CDs, including his most recently released recording Boss Bones. He has received the Jazz Journalists Association Award for Trombonist of the Year in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2002 and 2001, and the Jazz Journalists Association Critics' Choice Award for Best Trombone in 2000.

        Many renowned ensembles, including The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, The Wynton Marsalis Septet and The Brass Band of Battle Creek, have performed Gordon's compositions. His most recent commissioned suite, Cyberswing - Jazz in the Digital Age, was premiered in May of 2009. Student performance ensembles at The University of Scranton have premiered three of Gordon's major works -The Story Told for concert choir and narrator and Opus for Bogas for full concert band in 2000, and Prayer, Acknowledgement and Celebration a three-movement choral work in 2003. The University Jazz Ensemble has also premiered and performed a number of his compositions.

        Gordon serves as a faculty member of the Jazz Arts Program at The Manhattan School of Music. He is the youngest member of the U.S. Statesman of Jazz and continues to serves as a musical ambassador for the U.S. State Department. His first book Basic Training: Exercises and Suggested Studies by Wycliffe Gordon will be released this fall.

       In 2006, Gordon received an honorary degree from The University of Scranton.

        Other members of the Wycliffe Gordon Quintet are Joseph Boga, trumpet; Aaron Diehl, piano; Yasushi Nakamura, bass; and Marian Felder, drums.
       
        For more information on this event, call 941-7624 or email music@scranton.edu.

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