Performance by Acclaimed Musicians Celebrates the History of Jazz
Wycliffe Gordon will be among the featured artists performing with The University of Scranton Jazz Band on Saturday, Oct. 19, in the Houlihan-McLean Center. The event is free and open to the public. It is presented in conjunction with the University’s hosting of the 23rd annual national conference of the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts.
In a celebration of jazz music and its history, three internationally acclaimed artists will join University of Scranton student musicians in presenting an evening of jazz at the University’s Houlihan-McLean Center on Saturday, Oct. 19. Admission to both segments of the event – a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. and a concert at 8 p.m. – is free and open to the public. The evening is presented in conjunction with the University’s hosting of the 23rd annual national conference of the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts.
The evening will begin at 7 p.m. with a presentation by Grammy Award-winning writer Loren Schoenberg, the artistic director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Schoenberg will discuss the ways in which jazz – the first truly American art form – has historically served as a tool and catalyst for social justice in America.
At 8 p.m., The University of Scranton Jazz Band will present a concert featuring guest trombone soloist Wycliffe Gordon, H’06, with a special appearance by trumpeter Mark Gould. The concert will take the audience through a variety of different eras and styles in the history of jazz, and will include music by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Charles Mingus.
An award-winning trombonist, composer, conductor, arranger and educator, Wycliffe Gordon received an honorary degree from The University of Scranton in 2006 and offered the commencement address: a musical performance dedicated to the sounds of New Orleans, using his trombone. He also has composed and premiered three major works through the University’s World Premiere Composition Series.
As a solo artist and leader of the Wycliffe Gordon Quartet and Quintet, as well as a former member of the Wynton Marsalis Septet, The Jazz at Lincoln Center 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 19 solo CDs and received the Jazz Journalists’ Association Award for Trombonist of the Year eight times since 2001, as well as the Jazz Journalists Association Critics’ Choice Award for Best Trombone.
Loren Schoenberg, a performer, historian, writer, conductor and teacher of jazz, is the executive director of The National Jazz Museum in Harlem and leader of the Loren Schoenberg Big Band and The National Jazz Museum in Harlem All-Stars. He has served on the faculties of many prestigious American jazz studies programs, including The Juilliard School, the New School and Manhattan School of Music. Schoenberg’s articles on jazz have appeared in The New York Times, The Lester Young Reader, The Oxford Companion to Jazz, and Masters of the Jazz Saxophone, and his first book, “The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Jazz,” was published by Perigee Books, with an introduction by Wynton Marsalis.
Schoenberg has performed and recorded with a stunning number of jazz legends, including Wynton Marsalis, Benny Carter, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Heath, John Lewis, Mel Lewis, Marian McPartland and Dr. Billy Taylor. He has also spoken and performed at the White House for three administrations, and served as an adviser to documentary filmmaker Ken Burns for his film “JAZZ.”
A renowned trumpeter, teacher, and conductor, Mark Gould served as principal trumpeter of the Metropolitan Opera from 1974 to 2003. He teaches trumpet on the faculty at The Juilliard School and The Manhattan School of Music, and his students play with the most highly regarded orchestras and ensembles throughout the world. Gould also is leader of The New York Trumpet Ensemble, conducts the MSM Brass Orchestra and Wind Ensemble, conducts an orchestral repertoire class for winds, brass and percussion at Juilliard, and co-conducts The Scranton Brass Orchestra. He has performed throughout the world, his discography is extensive, and he has appeared in nearly 50 “Live from Lincoln Center” broadcasts .
Rob Kapilow H ’09, will also be in attendance at the performance. An award-winning composer, educator, author, conductor, pianist, commentator and radio and television personality, he will be in Scranton to deliver a plenary address to conference participants. (That address is not open to the public.) Kapilow received an honorary degree from The University of Scranton in 2009.
The Lilly Fellows Program National Network of Church Related Colleges and Universities holds its annual national conference each fall on one of the network’s member campuses. Official representatives of all the network colleges and universities meet to consider a significant issue of faith and learning, exchange ideas and practices regarding their mission, and foster the whole range of network programs and activities.
For additional information, email music@scranton.edu or visit www.scranton.edu/music.
