KT Sullivan & Mark Nadler
Wednesday, February 6, 2008

These quintessential entertainers will perform Porter, Bernstein, Comden & Green and more, backed by a small combo. With their over-the-top personalities and talent, this concert will be Carnegie Hall, the Rainbow Room, and Broadway wrapped into one dynamic evening.

When grown men in New York City weep at words sung by a chanteuse, there must be more than meets the eye. KT Sullivan is that rare cabaret singer who can evoke emotions from the great songs of the 20th Century, and she moves her audiences regularly at the Oak Room of New York’s Algonquin Hotel, the Sabarsky Cafe of the Neue Gallerie on Fifth Avenue and Live on the Park in London.

Mark Nadler starred in and co-wrote t he off-Broadway Gershwin revue, American Rhapsody which was nominated for a Drama Desk and two Lucille Lortel Awards, and received the Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC) Award for Outstanding Musical Revue. Additionally, he received the MAC award three years in a row for Outstanding Musical Comedy Performer. Mark has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Town Hall, and in almost every significant night-club in New York City and Los Angeles.

Jazz Extravaganza
Friday, February 8, 2008

The Chicago-based Grammy Award-winning saxophonist Eric Schneider has performed with a veritable “Who’s Who” of jazz greats. After graduating from college, he spent four years on the road with Earl “Fatha” Hines, culminating in the album, Eric and Earl. He then toured with the Count Basie Orchestra for two years. A partial list of jazz luminaries Schneider has worked with includes Tony Bennett, Benny Goodman, Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughn, Rosemary Clooney and Billy Eckstine.

A gifted pianist, Mike Kocour’s first gig took place when he was hired by a classmate’s parents to provide background music at their party. This, when he was only in eighth grade! He has since performed with such jazz legends as Eddie Harris, Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Eddie Daniels and Benny Golson. Although Kocour loves his hometown, Chicago, he eagerly accepted the position as director of jazz studies at ASU when Charles Marohnic retired some three years ago. Since then, he has combined a performer’s life with an academic’s mission, which includes the new ASU Herberger MainStage Jazz Series, Latin Jazz workshops, and student outreach.

Jeff Lindberg represents a new breed of American conductors who are equally at home with the literatures/repertoire of the American jazz orchestra and the European symphonic orchestra. A professor of music at The College of Wooster in Ohio, he is also Artistic Director/Conductor of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra and Music Director of the Wooster Symphony Orchestra. Lindberg is an active transcriber of jazz recordings, whose arrangements have been performed by, among others, Joe Williams, Clark Terry, the Count Basie Orchestra, the Woody Herman Orchestra, and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. All the arrangements/charts for the “Charlie Parker With Strings” concert were transcribed note for note from the original recordings dating from 1949 and 1950.

Grand Opera Favorites with Arizona Opera
Sunday, February 10, 2008

Maestro Joel Revzen is an award-winning conductor and pianist who holds Bachelor and Master degrees in conducting from The Julliard School, where he received the Frank Damrosch Prize in Conducting. Currently General and Artistic Director of Arizona Opera, Revzen has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera conducting staff since 1999. In addition, he is a frequent guest conductor for orchestras around the world, including the Kirov Opera in St. Petersburg, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra National de Lyon, and Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center.

Bill Charlap Trio
Tuesday, February 12 & Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Hailed as one of the premier interpreters of the Great American Songbook, pianist/vocalist Bill Charlap was born in New York City into a musical family. His father, Moose Charlap, was a Broadway composer and songwriter; his mother, Sandy Stewart, who specializes in popular songs, performed with Benny Goodman. Charlap studied with jazz pianist Jack Reilly and classical pianist Eleanor Hancock, while informally picking up pointers from jazz/popular song pianist Dick Hyman. He was fully thrust into the jazz world in the late 1980s when he joined Gerry Mulligan’s quintet; in 1994, he was enlisted by Phil Woods for his band. In 1996, he began playing with his fine working trio of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington.

Charlap received the Pianist of the Year Award in 2003 and was named outstanding jazz soloist by Manhattan’s Night Life Awards in 2003 and 2004. In July 2005, Charlap succeeded Dick Hyman as Artistic Director of Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y.

James Jones, Organist, in Recital
Sunday, February 17, 2008

A native of Sanford, North Carolina, James Jones was a Kenan Organ Scholar at the NC School of the Arts, where he participated in master classes led by David Higgs, Dame Gillian Weir and Paul Jacobs. Three days after his graduation, he performed in recital at the prestigious Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC. Known for his expressive performances and enthusiasm for the organ, Jones has been playing professionally for churches since the age of 11. Now only 24, he is currently the organist and choirmaster at Greensboro’s Westminster Presbyterian Church, one of the fastest-growing Presbyterian churches in the country.

Choral Masterworks
Friday, February 22, 2008

Acclaimed for his “fresh-toned and touching portrayal” by Opera News and lauded by the New Orleans Times-Picayune for his “rich lyrical tenor, fabulous top notes, and striking good looks,” John McVeigh performed last year with Arizona Opera in Zemire et Azor. That same season, he joined The Phoenix Symphony for performances of Messiah and Bach’s Cantata No. 151, returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Pang in Turandot, sang an all-Bernstein concert with the Portland Symphony, and encored his performance of Phillip Glass’s Symphony No. 5 in Leipzig.

Soprano Tracy Dahl has received high praise for her performances with opera companies across North America and Europe, which include engagements with the Houston Grand Opera, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Equally at home in recitals, Ms. Dahl is also a frequent guest artist with orchestras across North America. She has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco and Vancouver.

Andre Watts in Concert
Sunday, February 24, 2008

Andre Watts burst upon the music world at the age of 16 when Leonard Bernstein chose him to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic in their nationally-broadcast Young People’s Concerts. Only two weeks later, Bernstein asked him to substitute at the last minute for the ailing Glenn Gould in performances of Liszt’s E-flat Concerto with the New York Philharmonic, thus launching Watt’s career in storybook fashion. More than 40 years later, Andre Watts remains one of today’s most celebrated and beloved superstars. His performances each year with the world’s great orchestras and conductors, and his sold-out recitals and appearances at the most prestigious international festivals bring him to every corner of the globe.

Time For Three
Tuesday, February 26 & Wednesday, February 27, 2008

A young, dynamic trio of classically-trained string musicians, Time for Three transcends traditional performance genres. In concert, a blue-grass standard like Orange Blossom Special may be followed by a gypsy-tinged csardas. Tf3 is equally comfortable offering their own arrangements of shorter classical works and popular hits, whether Brahms or the Beatles. They continue to write and arrange all manner of music, and have begun a major commissioning program to expand their unique repertoire for both symphony orchestras and concert series.

Who are they? First, graduates of Philadelphia’s illustrious Curtis School of Music. Their first CD appeared while they were still students. For more details, here’s a short, but accurate sketch: “The artistic conscience of this group seems to be Nick Kendall, a serene violinist until provoked to pure virtuoso dazzle. The foil in their musical touch-tag is Zachary De Pue, a kind of Peter Pan with a fiddle, who darts and weaves and flies very high but never crashes. And the third, the one whose instrument settles the arguments, is the immensely charismatic bassist, Ranaan Meyer, out of whose near-Olympian ear the group appears to have sprung.” (Stewart Stern)

John Pizzarelli
Friday, February 29, 2008

John Pizzarelli has cultivated a winning international career by singing classic standards and late-night ballads, and by playing sublime and inventive guitar. Using greats like Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra and the songs of writers like Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen as touchstones, Pizzarelli is among the prime revivalists of the Great American Songbook, bringing to his work the cool jazz flavor of his brilliant guitar playing.

For more than half a century, Bucky Pizzarelli has belonged to the fraternity of musicians who kept mainstream and traditional jazz alive. Having begun his professional career while a teenager, Bucky has always been in high demand to provide propulsion and background for other musicians. As a result, the list of big bands and vocalists with whom he has performed and recorded reads like a “Who’s Who of Jazz.” In short, he is a complete musician who moves effortlessly from the daunting format of solo guitar to playing solid, swinging rhythm and single string solos.

The Ying Quartet
Sunday, March 2, 2008

Now in its second decade, the Ying Quartet continues to develop ways of making artistic and creative expression an essential part of everyday life. Their current projects include an innovative visiting residency at Symphony Space in New York City connecting music with other art forms (dance, poetry, and film); an exploration with the Turtle Island String Quartet of jazz, improvisation and the classical string quartet tradition; and a variety of visiting residencies on campuses and in communities across the United States.

Natives of Chicago, the Ying siblings – Timothy and Janet, violins; Phillip, viola; and David, cello – began their career as an ensemble in 1992 in the farm town of Jesup, Iowa (population 2,000) as the first artists involved in the National Endowment for the Arts Chamber Music Rural Residencies Program. The Quartet participated fully in the community, performing on countless occasions for audiences of six to six hundred people in a residency so successful that it is widely chronicled in the national and international media, including features in The New York Times and STRAD magazine and on CBS’s Sunday Morning.

In 1993, the Quartet’s exceptional musical qualities earned it the celebrated Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In the years since, the Yings have established an international reputation for excellence in performance with appearances in virtually every major American city and in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan and Taiwan.