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Victor Goines Photo by Nan Miller, courtesy of The Juilliard School

Juilliard has announced the names of the first eighteen students admitted to the new Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, founded jointly by The Juilliard School and Jazz at Lincoln Center. The new Juilliard jazz faculty, including clarinetist, saxophonist and new Director of Jazz Studies Victor Goines selected the members of the inaugural class last April through a nationwide audition process congruent with Juilliard’s regular admission policy.

The students will participate in a two-year, tuition free program that focuses on public performance. Upon completion, students receive an Artist Diploma from Juilliard. In addition to the Institute for Jazz Studies pre-professional curriculum, a Bachelor’s of Music for Jazz studies will be implemented in September of 2004. This program expects to accept 12-15 qualified first time students.

The Institute’s jazz orchestra will consist of all eighteen students and will present several concerts a year at Juilliard and Alice Tully Hall, as well as various venues around New York City and on tour. In addition, students will perform in various small ensembles at gigs slated for them by Jazz at Lincoln Center and receive up to $5000 for performance stipends.

“This new program is just another sign of the maturation of American culture and the reflection of our growth in music education,” stated Jazz at Lincoln Center artistic director Wynton Marsalis. “This is an opportunity for the artistic vision of musicians like Ellington, Mingus, and Parker to be realized through formal education.”

Juilliard president Dr. Joseph W. Polisi shares Marsalis’s enthusiasm. “I am very enthusiastic about beginning this historic initiative to bring the art of jazz to The Juilliard School,” he said. “With the exceptional artistic and educational programs developed by Jazz at Lincoln Center, their involvement in guiding curriculum and performance development, and an environment at Juilliard that can appropriately support jazz studies at the School, now is clearly the time to begin this new educational venture.”

With the approval of the first-ever Juilliard jazz program in April of 2000, Juilliard’s first appearance at the IAJE Conference in January 2001 and the acceptance of the eighteen-member inaugural class this month, Juilliard has affirmed their commitment to promoting exceptional jazz performance. The Juilliard jazz orchestra, to be conducted by Michael Morgan and comprised of the eighteen students, will have their first public performance on October 30, 2001, at Alice Tully Hall with guest artists Wynton Marsalis and Victor Goines.

Laurie Shulman

Where is the orchestra going in the twenty-first century? We’ve all read plenty of articles and heard numerous discussions on this subject dating back to a couple of years before Y2K. That didn’t stop the American Symphony Orchestra League from tackling the topic at its 56th National Conference in Seattle last week. Overarching themes in conference sessions were change in the orchestra and its community, the impact of technology on change (having Microsoft in your back yard helps put a state-of-the-art spin on this one), and the merging of new music into the mainstream. With the Seattle Symphony as host, ASOL had an apt musical focus for its discourse. Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony have long been champions of new and unusual music, and their performances showcased compositions by several living composers.

Schwarz and the SSO kicked off the conference with an all 20th-century concert in Benaroya Hall, the orchestra’s new home since September 1998. The program comprised Samuel Barber‘s Toccata Festiva (1960), David Diamond‘s Symphony No. 2 (1943), and the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto (1901) with André Watts. The Barber was added to the program to showcase the Watjen Concert Organ, which was just inaugurated eleven months ago. The instrument was built by C.B. Fisk, Inc. of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Its unusual façade emphasizes square wooden pipes rather than lead and alloy ones, and lacks vertical thrust, presumably a result of design elements imposed on Benaroya Hall by its acoustician, Cyril Harris. From orchestra level, the pipes appear flattened, with secondary sets visible in horizontal patterns at the top where they want to soar upward. SSO’s resident organist Carole Terry acquitted herself admirably in the work’s extended pedal cadenza. One wishes that the instrument had been given more room to speak into the large Benaroya room.

Gerard Schwarz has performed all of Diamond’s symphonies and recorded many of them for Delos. Last year he and the SSO presented the premiere of Diamond’s Tenth. For this performance, they dusted off a 58-year-old work that offered a nice change of pace after this past year of Copland celebrations. Diamond speaks in broad romantic paragraphs that sound retro in 2001. His unabashedly tonal music is peppered with workmanlike counterpoint. Other than some rough moments in the SSO brass, the piece received what appeared to be a committed and polished performance. Surprisingly, the orchestra was less successful in the Rachmaninoff. Mr. Watts, who can play fast and loud with the best of them — and did — had some genuinely poetic moments in the slow movement and brought forth an impressive spectrum of colors from the piano. Unfortunately, Schwarz and the orchestra covered him up through most of the climactic moments in the outer movements. Benaroya seats 2700, and has the predictable problems of balance and blend that result from an overly large room. Except when the woodwinds were featured as soloists against reduced orchestra, they could not be heard. The audience was delighted, however, and rewarded Messrs. Watts and Schwarz with several curtain calls.

ASOL conferences in recent years have given admirable time and attention to youth orchestras in conference programming and in performance. The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Jonathan Shames, presented a brief program at the Thursday morning opening session consisting of Steven Stucky‘s Son et lumière, SSO Composer in Residence Samuel Jones‘s Elegy, and Wagner‘s Overture to The Flying Dutchman. The Stucky is a color piece featured on the ASOL Web site NewMusicNow, which celebrates American music at the millennium, and in the current issue of the ASOL’s Symphony Magazine. Jones wrote his poignant Elegy on the heels of the Kennedy assassination; the SSO has also programmed it in recent seasons. Mr. Shames deserves credit for stretching his young charges with such ambitious programming.

The last of the live performances was in many respects the most compelling. Mr. Schwarz was emcee and host for three works featured in May on the SSO’s pathbreaking Pacific Rim Festival. Korean-born Jacqueline Jeeyoung Kim‘s Longing Under the Moon is an atmospheric, attractive duo for harp and violin casting the two instruments in a dialogue between lovers. Pipa virtuosa Wu Man was the soloist in Tan Dun‘s Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra, a piece derived from his Ghost Opera that also exists in a version for pipa and string quartet. Alastair Willis conducted. The recital concluded with Australian Carl Vine‘s Defying Gravity, a roof-raising percussion quartet that emphasizes tom-toms and marimbas. Gerard Schwarz chaired a post-concert panel discussion in which Wu Man and Mr. Willis participated. While their comments were helpful, they did not make up for the inexplicable lack of program notes for this unfamiliar and fascinati
ng concert. The venue was Nordstrom Recital Hall, a 540-seat secondary performing space within Benaroya Hall. The seat count and rectangular footprint are just right for chamber music. Unfortunately acoustician Cyril Harris imposed an archaic fan shape and a too-steep seating rake within the space, thereby compromising what might otherwise have been an acoustical jewel.

New music found its niche among the ASOL conference sessions in “New Music: A New Equation,” which explored programming ideas that have worked in various orchestral communities. Each panelist represented an orchestra with an interest in new music and a successful history in presenting it. Brent Assink of the San Francisco Symphony pointed out that “somewhere along the way it became cool to have one’s assumptions challenged at the symphony, to hear a work and not necessarily enjoy it.” He noted that the orchestra’s conductor must believe passionately in the music s/he performs. Paul Gambill, Music Director of the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, has had success with thematic programming that breaks from what he dubbed the “new music as overture syndrome.” “We have to lead taste,” he declared. “If we don’t lead [the audience], we follow them. Stretch them a little.” The Seattle Symphony’s marketing director Sandi Macdonald gave an overview of the orchestra’s Music of Our Time series and its recent Pacific Rim Festival concerts; her watchword was “breaking barriers by building trust.”

Technology and its impact on the orchestra played a key role in ASOL conference session programming; however, the immediacy of live performance and the need to cultivate new audiences also recurred as familiar themes. Three speakers shared the honors for the keynote address. Thomas Morris, Executive Director of the Cleveland Orchestra; John DeJarnatt, an oboist in the Seattle Symphony and chair of its Musicians Committee; and Robert Spano, Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Music Director Designate of the Atlanta Symphony. Morris discussed change as an organizational buzzword and made suggestions as to how repertoire maintains its hold on an audience. “We are in the business of producing art, not entertainment,” he cautioned, urging that a strongly articulated, deeply felt artistic vision be embedded into the fabric of each institution. De Jarnatt, after assuring the audience that yes, the Seattle musicians love their new concert hall and yes, they’ve thought to ask Bill Gates for money, discussed the dual roles of making a living and making art. He also acknowledged the crucial role of a strong board in shaping an orchestra’s vision. Spano was the only one to mention technology and the role it might play in the future of the orchestra, but not at the expense of the magic that occurs in a live performance, which he called the crux of our tradition.

“Emerging Technologies: Reaching Out” was the first of several colloquia that drew upon personnel from Seattle’s tech-heavy industry and think tanks to complement music professionals on its panels. Much of the presentation was PowerPoint show-and-tell, with the most interesting contribution coming from Curtis Wong, a Vice President with the Next Media Research Group at Microsoft. Mr. Wong has extensive experience with TV and film production, and worked with UCLA‘s Robert Winter in the Multimedia Beethoven software that wrought a minor revolution in music appreciation courses in the 1990s. Wong is currently a technology adviser for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS. His presentation included excerpts from an Itzhak Perlman digital TV interactive remote master class. Eileen Quigley, General Manager of RealNetworks‘ RealImpact division, discussed the growth of streaming media in the current Internet environment. Although she argued that barriers to entry in the medium are significantly lower than they have been in the past, demonstrating with examples of flash animation used for fund-raising and consciousness-raising about issues. Questions from the floor, however, indicated that many of the ASOL delegates still have a steep learning curve in this area, even with respect to basic terminology. Ongoing problems at the Washington State Convention Center with such elementary technology such as microphones lent an element of the ridiculous to this and other technology sessions.

Microsoft was as strong a presence at this ASOL conference as it continues to be in the Seattle community. At a session called “Music on the Web Demystified,” the software giant’s Cassandra Cummings attempted to provide an overview of streaming, downloading, and getting one’s orchestra involved in webcasting. The knowledge gap among the audience was wide, and Cummings herself had only a rudimentary knowledge of music, which made her attempts at topical analogies awkward. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the Internet is facilitating the growth of the next mass medium in our culture. Peter Newman, program director at KING-FM, one of the dwindling classical radio stations in the U.S., suggested that radio stations will be hungry for content that differentiates them from other stations, which in turn can foster partnership with area performing arts organizations.

Chicago Symphony principal trumpet Adolph “Bud” Herseth was the recipient of the League’s 2001 Gold Baton Award at a Benaroya Hall awards ceremony on Friday afternoon, June 22. Retiring this summer after a nearly legendary 53 years with the CSO, Herseth is the first orchestral musician to receive this prestigious award. To commemorate the occasion, members of the SSO performed Samuel Jones’s Aurum Aurorae (in memoriam Morton Gould), a musical tribute for brass, organ, and timpani. Mr. Herseth also played the Jeremiah Clarke Trumpet Voluntary, with organist Carole Terry, for the assembly. His next stop is London, where he will be awarded an honorary d
octorate by the Royal College of Music the last week in June.

Also at the Finale Awards Ceremony, Chicago Symphony Executive Director Henry Fogel assumed the ASOL Chairmanship from outgoing chairman Bud Lindstrand. Fogel is a cheerleader for the industry. He focused his remarks on the improved financial situations of many orchestras, and called upon League members to do a better job of publicizing fiscal and other improvements in their orchestras’ conditions. Take the initiative to foster the climate and conditions in which our orchestras can flourish, he suggested. “Nobody ever bought a ticket to see me manage a meeting,” Fogel added. “We exist for our art, and our musicians are central to our mission.”

ASOL’s Member Services VP Jack McAuliffe reported that approximately 1200 delegates attended this year’s meeting. That figure is down from last year (when the meeting took place in Boston), but according to McAuliffe a reduction in attendees is not unusual in years that the conference takes place on the west coast. Those who chose to stay home missed the most glorious weather in Seattle’s recent memory. Mount Rainier, notorious for hiding behind an impenetrable wall of clouds, was visible during all daylight hours. The sun shone brilliantly, making the ASOL delegates’ walks between and among the Washington State Convention Center, Benaroya Hall, Pike Place Market, Starbucks and various headquarters hotels exceptionally pleasant.

The Seattle Symphony’s hospitality included ASOL’s traditional Tune-Up Party in the Benaroya Hall lobbies following the opening concert. The orchestra’s docents provided guided tours of the hall throughout the conference. The hall complex was completed just recently with the opening of Soundbridge, a 2000-square foot interactive exhibit space including an instrumental petting zoo and extensive options at ‘listening bars.’ At the ASOL conference luncheon, Microsoft Executive Vice President Robert Herbold discussed his company’s collaboration with the Seattle Symphony in Soundbridge. “We’ve turned a small space into a giant flexible classroom,” Herbold said. He also gave a whirlwind overview of technological advances in the past fifteen years, touching on the shrinking size of the silicon chip, capacity increases for data storage and transmittal, and global connectivity, along with some dizzying predictions for the devices that lie in our future.

Next year’s ASOL National Conference takes place from June 12-15, 2002, in Philadelphia, six months after the scheduled opening of the Philadelphia Orchestra‘s new home, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

Mary Ellen Childs Photo by Warwick Green courtesy of Meet the Composer

Mary Ellen Childs is known for creating both instrumental works and compositions that integrate music, dance, and theater. She will be working in the Minneapolis area collaborating with students and instituting a series of performances in public spaces with her performing company CRASH.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: What type of activities have you used to start your residency?

MARY ELLEN CHILDS: My own performing group, which goes by the name of CRASH, is involved in a number of projects. We’re a percussion group but very movement based and very visual, almost a cross between dance and music, and we’re doing a series that we call Street Noise this summer. We’re going out into outlying areas around the Twin Cities and playing festivals and fairs. This past weekend we played at a sculpture garden and they let us get up on the sculptures and play them and it was just wonderful. The idea is that not all performances have to take place in the concert hall where the audience comes to you and they just sit passively. We’re going out to our audience. I’m next collaborating with a visual artist, Norman Andersen. He is a sculptor who creates work out of old musical instruments and old musical instrument parts. Most of his sculptures are mechanized so they move and make sound, and I’ve asked him to create a piece that would be both its own sound maker but is also playable as a musical instrument. We plan to take that to all three sites.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: Were you already established in the Minneapolis area or did you have to relocate for the residency?

MARY ELLEN CHILDS: I’ve been here 15 years. And I was really looking for partners that I already had good relationships with so we could go right into the work rather than take a year to get to know each other.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: What made you want to devote three years of your life to this type of project?

MARY ELLEN CHILDS: Well, it’s a direction I was already going in so it just sort fell into place as the right next thing to do. It let me go forward with the kinds of projects that I’m interested in. I’d already been doing a little bit of work with Eden Prairie High School students and with St. Olaf college students and was enjoying that very much. And it also seemed very natural to go out into a community, for instance with these Street Noise performances, because we want to connect with an audience when my group performs. To put it in arts administration terms, its sort of audience development when you can go to your audience. The idea for that sort of happened all by itself after we had the opportunity just to rehearse outdoors. We always attracted a crowd and then people got really curious and they’d ask questions. It was always just really enjoyable to interact with a general public.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: It seems many of your projects are really interdisciplinary. Is that a background you have too? What got you interested on approaching music that way?

MARY ELLEN CHILDS: Well, I grew up dancing and did some choreography early on, so yes that’s very much in my background. I started incorporating sort of a bigger picture thinking into my music about 15 years ago where I paid attention to the staging and what the lighting looked like and how the players entered and exited the stage, or setting up percussion instruments in a certain way for their visual effect. And then I started incorporating movement into what I was doing with players, in percussion music especially. It just sort of progressed naturally for me.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: Because this project does place you so much in the community, what do you think is your role as a composer in today’s society?

MARY ELLEN CHILDS: As an artist. I mean I think it really is about creating work and bringing it to people in whatever form, whether its doing it in a theater or bringing it out to the street and then whatever that does for people — whether its pure kinetic enjoyment, or pure kinetic enjoyment plus it reminds them of clapping games that they did when they were a kid, or it just sorts of surprises and delights people because it was something unexpected. I really think it’s simply that. I do other things in the community connected with students or helping the Southern Theater arrange a concert series, but I really think the most important thing is the creation of work and what that does for people. So it’s really being an artist.

Rebeca Mauleón Photo by David Belove courtesy of Meet the Composer

MOLLY SHERIDAN: Why don’t you begin by talking briefly about your plans for the residency?

REBECA MAULEÓN: Well I think that the most important aspect of it is in bringing together a diverse cross section of a population in San Francisco, which in general has been very underserved due to its economic situation. This is an area we call South Market. It has a booming dot.com industry and then a very substantial low-income ethnic minority population, so just the challenge of working in this kind of environment and bringing world culture to this kind of diverse community is both challenging and very rewarding. Many of these people are recent immigrants who otherwise wouldn’t really have access to the arts. However, I’m coming into a teaching situation [at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts] that has really already been well established. The other exciting challenge for me was sharing musical skills with unskilled artists, people who are just regular folks, and eventually entertaining the idea of composing with them and for them and having them explore some of their own creativity. The way we’re doing that, in particular with the seniors but also with the kids, is through poetry and spoken word, which is an area that as a composer I’d always wanted to get more involved in. So ultimately I’m kind of stretching my own creative horizons by working in that medium while at the same time giving them the benefits of my information in the whole world music genre. So we’re doing such diverse amount of things. I’m teaching them to do musical accompaniment so they can create their own score to their poems. And this summer I’m going to be teaching them how to make their own instrument.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: What do you hope to gain as an artist from the residency?

REBECA MAULEÓN: I’m getting a lot of material from what I’m doing with the educational program. It’s feeding me and fueling me for writing. It’s really an important opportunity for me to be able to sit down and get inspired, so I’m looking forward to working on a lot of new material. Usually with a lot of these residencies it takes a little while to get going, but we started in right away with the educational part, so I’m actually looking forward now to really getting into some more composing.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: Do you think your previous connections to the community will in some ways be a distraction to your work?

REBECA MAULEÓN: You always make time for what you need to do. And also, the muse being what she is, you find that those moments of inspiration come whenever they come. There are moments that you have to be flexible within a residency like this because there are going to be times when you’re just doing a lot more of one aspect than the other. But we have three years, and the beauty of this really is the flexibility and how much we can morph and change to accommodate schedules and lives and things like that. And I know when it comes down to it it’s all going to get done. And then I’m also looking forward to the opportunity to collaborate with various artists in the community. I’m very big on collaboration and excited about the potential of working with people that on a regular basis I wouldn’t have the opportunity to work with.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: What attracts you to collaboration?

REBECA MAULEÓN: Well I think it brings in refreshing perspectives and musical textures that normally you wouldn’t be able to access. That way it’s also not just a dictatorial concept where you are giving all of the information and they are regurgitating back what you want. It’s much more a process of their molding your vision, helping you to bring it to life. In many of my pieces I also leave a lot open to improvisation. I don’t like to have every single note written on paper, so there’s always going to be a segment of a piece that’s really free and open. Also, people from various aspects of community coming together and working — it’s a sign of cooperation and understanding.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: How have your previous experiences as a composer prepared you for the challenges of this residency?

REBECA MAULEÓN: Well, foremost is not only familiarity but my comfort level with working with people of all cultural backgrounds and all ages. I try to talk to everyone on the same level so they don’t feel they’re being condescended to. The first challenge was working specifically with a group of seniors and then specifically a group of children and then learning how we connect. And we found that we do connect constantly. Now, for example, in my senior group, they’ve established an interest in learning more of the technical aspects of music and theory, so we’re really finding that they also have the capacity to express what their needs are on the learning level. So that’s one of the things that I think is the most important to establish, that nothing’s set in stone, that there is a capacity to change and grow within the scope of the residency and that they themselves can shape it.

MOLLY SHERIDAN: Since New Residencies is about composers getting grants not just to work, but also to work with the community, what do you think is the role of composer in a community?

REBECA MAULEÓN: Well, unfortunately I think the composer has on a larger scale always been somewhat invisible. The mass media and the mass population don’t even acknowledge the fact that there are people who create music. It’s more of an entertainment-oriented issue — an extra curricular activity as opposed to something that should be fundamental. So that being said, now I think the challenge is not only to educate the current population on what the role of the composer is, but in having them understand that they too can be creators and composers. It’s going to take a lot more of this kind of programming to bring an awareness of how music is made and how can people feel more connected to the process of music making. And that’s not going to happen overnight. I think for me the most important thing is the demystification of the composer and bringing the whole process down to a more grassroots level — giving everybody access and the opportunity, and letting them know that regardless of your training, you too can be a creator and a music maker and not just be a passive consumer.

1. Lifetime Achievement in Jazz: John Lewis (joining previous honorees Benny Carter, Ornette Coleman, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins)
2. Musician of the Year (achievement in sound recordings, live concert performances and overall presence, April 15, 2000 – April 15, 2001): Joe Lovano
3. Album of the Year (released April 15, 2000 – April 15, 2001): Joe Lovano, 52nd Street Themes (Blue Note)
4. Reissue of the Year: Louis Armstrong, The Complete Hot 5 and Hot 7 Recordings (Columbia Legacy)
5. Events Producer of the Year: George Wein, Festival Productions
6. Composer of the Year: Andrew Hill
7. Male Singer of the Year: Jimmy Scott
8. Female Singer of the Year: Dianne Reeves
9. Recording Debut of the Year: Jane Monheit, Never Never Land (N-Coded Music)
10. Afro-Cuban Jazz Album of the Year: Chucho Valdes, Solo: Live in New York (Blue Note)
11. Brazilian Jazz Album of the Year: Eliane Elias, Everything I Love (Blue Note)
12. Small Ensemble of the Year (nonet or smaller): Dave Holland Prime Directive Quintet
13. Large Ensemble of the Year (tentet or bigger, including big bands, jazz orchestras, contemporary symphonies, et. al.): Maria Schneider Orchestra
14. Trumpeter of the Year: Dave Douglas
15. Trombonist of the Year: Wycliffe Gordon
16. Brass of the Year (tuba, French horn, etc.): Howard Johnson (tuba)
17. Alto Saxophonist of the Year: Greg Osby
18. Tenor Saxophonist of the Year: Sonny Rollins
19. Soprano Saxophonist of the Year: Jane Ira Bloom
20. Baritone Saxophonist of the Year: Hamiet Bluiett
21. Winds and Reeds of the Year: Marty Ehrlich (saxophones, clarinets, flutes)
22. Pianist of the Year: Kenny Barron
23. Organ-keyboards of the Year: Larry Goldings
24. Guitarist of the Year: Bill Frisell
25. Acoustic Bassist of the Year: Dave Holland
26. Electric Bassist of the Year: Steve Swallow
27. Strings Player of the Year: Regina Carter, violin
28. Mallets Player of the Year: Stefon Harris, vibes, marimba
29. Percussionist of the Year: Poncho Sanchez, congas
30. Drummer of the Year: Billy Higgins

Jazz Journalism Categories

1. Jazz Journalism Lifetime Achievement Award: Dan Morgenstern
2. Excellence in Photography/the Lona Foote-Bob Parent Award: Chuck Stewart
3. Excellence in Newspaper, Magazine or Online Feature and Review Writing/the Helen Oakley Dance-Robert Palmer Award:
   Bob Blumenthal
4. Excellence in Jazz Broadcasting/the Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award:
   Michael Bourne, WBGO-FM, Newark and www.wbgo
5. Best Film/Video Regarding Jazz of the Year: Ken Burns’ Jazz
6. Best Periodical Covering Jazz: Jazz Times
7. Best Jazz Liner Note/Program Note of the Year: David X. Young’s Jazz Loft (JazzMagnet), essays by Bob Brookmeyer, Teddy Charles, Bill Crow, Howard Mandel, Juan Osaka McFelsnir, and David X. Young
8. Best Jazz Website of the Year: Jazz House (last year’s honoree: Jazz House)
9. Best Book on Jazz of the Year: Oxford Companion to Jazz, Bill Kirchner, ed. (Oxford University Press)

Erica vonKleist Photo by Nan Miller courtesy of The Juilliard School

Erica vonKleist (alto saxophone), from Connecticut, studied at the Manhattan School of Music. Earning honors in the 1999 and 2000 Down Beat Magazine’s Student Music Awards including “Best Composition,” “Best Arrangement,” and “Outstanding Soloist,” she also played lead saxophone player in the Grammy Jazz Band that performed at the Grammy Nominee party in Los Angeles in 2000.

Diron Holloway Photo by Nan Miller courtesy of The Juilliard School

Diron Holloway (alto saxophone), from Miami, Florida, received his bachelor of science degree in music education with honors from Florida A & M University and a master’s degree in performance/jazz studies from Northern Illinois University in 2001. As a member of the NIU Jazz Ensemble, he appeared with such artists as Wynton Marsalis, Carl Allen, Nat Adderley, and Benny Golson.

Ryan Redden (tenor saxophone), from Florida, graduated from William Paterson University with a bachelor of arts degree in jazz studies. He has performed with Duke Ellington bandmates John Lamb and Buster Cooper, as well as Randy Brecker, Joe Lovano, and Wynton Marsalis. In May 2000, Mr. Redden won the Charlie Parker Saxophone competition.

Adam Niewood (tenor saxophone), from New Jersey, is a graduate of William Paterson University where he earned a bachelor of music degree. Mr. Niewood is a professor of Jazz Saxophone, Jazz History, and small ensembles at Montclair State University. He has performed with his father, saxophonist Gerry Niewood.

Frank Basile (baritone saxophone) from Nebraska is a recent winner in the 24th Annual Student Music Awards sponsored by Down Beat Magazine. As a member of the One O’Clock Lab Band, Mr. Basile performed with Tim Hagans, Jim McNeely, Bill Watrous, and Joe Lovano, among others. Named “Outstanding Undergraduate Student in Jazz Studies” for the 1999-2000 year, he graduated, cum laude, with a bachelor’s degree in jazz studies from the University of North Texas in 2000.

Jennifer Krupa (trombone), from Connecticut, received her bachelor of music degree from the University of North Florida. She has been a member of the St. John’s River City Brass Band, the Universal Studios Brass Band, the Larry Elgart Orchestra, and the Benny Goodman Orchestra under the direction of Bob Wilbur. She also has performed with Wycliffe Gordon, Louis Bellson, Clark Terry, and Dr. John, among others.

Michael Lucke (trombone), from Texas, graduated from the University of North Texas with a bachelor of music degree in 2001. As a member of the One O’Clock Lab Band from 1998-2001, he participated in several international jazz festivals as well as recording three albums with the ensemble. Mr. Lucke also has performed and recorded with the University of North Texas Wind Symphony and appeared with musicians including Kenny Wheeler, Joe Lovano, and the Brecker Brothers.

Ryan Keberle (trombone), from Washington State, was selected to be a Yamaha Young Performing Artist in 1998. He received his bachelor of music degree from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with jazz trombonist Steve Turre. While at the Manhattan School of Music, he sat first chair with the award winning Jazz Orchestra and the Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble led by Bobby Sanabria. He also has performed with artists including Joey Baron, Kenny Werner, and Joe Lovano.

Dominick Farinacci Photo by Nan Miller courtesy of The Juilliard School

Dominick Farinacci (trumpet), from Ohio, recently was named “Outstanding Trumpet Soloist” at the 2001 Monterey Jazz Festival’s 31st Annual High School Competition. A featured soloist with the Grammy High School Jazz Band, he also performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in a Live From Lincoln Center broadcast on PBS in December 2000. Mr. Farinacci was a winner of the Yamaha Young Performing Artist Award in 1998.

Brandon Lee (trumpet), from Texas, is a recent award-winner in the 24th Annual Student Music Awards sponsored by Down Beat Magazine. He also was the recipient of the 2001 Clifford Brown & Stan Getz Fellowship Award, the 2001 Bob Ostrum Jazz Scholarship Award, and was chosen “Outstanding Soloist” at the 1999 Ellington Festival. Last December, Mr. Lee was among three young artists invited by Wynton Marsalis to perform with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in a tribute to Louis Armstrong.

Justin Kisor (trumpet), from Iowa began playing trumpet at age thirteen. Among several honors, he received the Clifford Brown & Stan Getz Fellowship in 1997 and was a member of the National High School Grammy Ensemble. He also has performed at Carnegie Hall and at the JVC Jazz Festival.

Jumaane Smith (trumpet), from Washington State, started playing trumpet at the age of ten. While still a teenager, he was accepted into the Roosevelt High Jazz band and toured with them throughout Europe and the United States including appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival, The North Sea Jazz Festival, and the Montreal Jazz Festival. He has worked with artists such as Jimmy Owens, Cecil Bridgewater, Andrew Cyrille, and George Garzone.

Adam Birnbaum (piano), from Massachusetts, received his bachelor of science degree in computer science from Boston College. The first two-time winner of the Boston College Concerto Competition, he has played with BC bOp!, The Boston College Concert Band, and with his own jazz trio. In 2000, he was named “Outstanding College Rhythm Section Player” at the Reno Jazz Festival.

Dan Kaufman (piano), from Illinois, is a graduate of the New England Conservatory. He has performed in numerous venues and festivals including the Kennedy Center, the Bank Boston Celebrity Series, the Ravinia Festival Chicago, and the Jazz Aspen Festival in Colorado. In addition, he recently participated in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance.

Craig Polasko (bass), from Connecticut, attended Tufts University where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He has performed regularly at Wally’s Café with the John Lamkin Quintet under the direction of trumpet player Darren Barrett. Recently, he has been a contributing composer for two Boston-based projects: the Mela Monk Quartet and the New Millennium Group.

Matt Brewer (bass), who was born in Oklahoma but resides in New Mexico, began his career at age twelve when he received the Outstanding Jazz Performer award from the University of New Mexico Jazz Festival. He was chosen to play in the Grammy High School Jazz Combo and to perform with other young artists on the 43rd Annual Grammy telecast. He has played with Dan Gottlieb, Clark Terry, Slide Hampton, and Bobby Watson, among others. Mr. Brewer also has studied classical music and performed as a member of the World Youth Symphony.

Ulysses Owen Photo by Nan Miller courtesy of The Juilliard School

Ulysses Owens (drums), fro
m Florida, recently was selected as a winner of the 24th Annual Student Music Awards sponsored by Down Beat Magazine. He has performed at international festivals including the Nantes Jazz Festival in Nantes, France and was invited to tour Japan with the Randall Haywood Ensemble in 2001. He has appeared with the River City Youth Band, and the Douglas Anderson Jazz Band, as well as with the Randall Haywood Ensemble.

Carmen Intorre (drums), from New York, studied at the New School University Jazz Program in New York where he has been an active member of the New School Big Band. His performances include appearances with DD Jackson, Ralph Alessi, Bill Kirchner, and Chuck Mangione, among others. He has performed with his band, “Straight Forward,” at numerous festivals. In 1999, he was the recipient of the Yamaha Young Performing Artist Award.