Jazz Musician Loren Schoenberg to Perform March 2
In Concert: The University of Scranton Jazz Band with guest soloist Loren Schoenberg, piano and tenor saxophone, presented by Performance Music at The University of Scranton, will take place Saturday, March 2, at 7:30 p.m. in the Houlihan-McLean Center. The concert is open to the public, free of charge. At 3:30 p.m. on March 2, in the Atrium of the Houlihan McLean Center, Schoenberg and award-winning filmmaker Kris Hendrickson will host a free screening of their new WVIA documentary “Wham Re-Bop-Boom-Bam: The Swing Jazz of Eddie Durham.”Renowned jazz musician and noted historian Loren Schoenberg, a pianist and tenor saxophone player, will conclude a busy weekend visit to Scranton with a performance with The University of Scranton Jazz Band on Saturday, March 2.
The concert, presented by Performance Music at The University of Scranton, begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Houlihan-McLean Center, Mulberry Street and Jefferson Avenue. Admission is free, with seating on a first-come, first-seated basis.
Earlier on Saturday, at 3:30 p.m. in the Atrium of the Houlihan McLean Center, Schoenberg and award-winning filmmaker Kris Hendrickson, a 1988 graduate of the University, will host a free screening of their new WVIA documentary, “Wham Re-Bop-Boom-Bam: The Swing Jazz of Eddie Durham,” which chronicles the life of the jazz guitar pioneer.
Durham’s works, along with those of a variety of other jazz greats, such as Benny Carter and Louis Armstrong, will be performed and their musical lives and legacies celebrated at the Saturday evening concert according to Performance Music Conductor and Director Cheryl Y. Boga.
The day prior, Friday, March 1, Schoenberg will present the lecture “The Lincoln/Armstrong Connection: From Gettysburg to New Orleans” as part of the Spring 2024 Schemel Forum World Affairs Luncheon Seminars series. The event will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Rose Room of Brennan Hall on campus. Reservations are required to attend the luncheon. For more information, visit the Schemel Forum webpage.
A nationally respected jazz musician, historian, educator, author, archivist, arranger, commentator, bandleader and teacher, Schoenberg was the founding executive director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, where he now serves as its senior scholar. He has received two Grammy Awards for Best Album Notes, and oversaw the Benny Goodman Archives at Yale University.
Through the years, Schoenberg has played and recorded with such jazz luminaries as Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Heath, Eddie Durham, Marian McPartland, Clark Terry, John Lewis, Christian McBride and Buck Clayton, and served as Bobby Short’s musical director from 1997 to 2005. He has also conducted the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, American Jazz Orchestra and WDR Jazz Orchestra in Koln, Germany.
Schoenberg has taught for several Jazz at Lincoln Center education programs and served as a screening judge for its Essentially Ellington program for 20 years. In addition, he is the author of the book, “The NPR Guide to Jazz,” and his writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times. He is a member of the faculty of The Juilliard School.
The University of Scranton Jazz Band is a 23-member big band-style ensemble made up of University of Scranton student musicians from majors spanning the curriculum. The band performs four or more times each year, with the majority of their concerts open to the public, free of admission charge, and often featuring a nationally or internationally renowned guest soloist.
For further information about the performance or the documentary screening, call 570-941-7624, email music@scranton.edu or visit the Performance Music website. For more on Schoenberg, visit juilliard.edu/music/faculty/schoenberg-loren.
