Wycliffe Gordon and Loren Schoenberg with University Jazz Band and Concert Choir

Sep 15, 2015
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Internationally acclaimed musicians Wycliffe Gordon H’06 and Loren Schoenberg will join The University of Scranton Jazz Band and Concert Choir as guest soloists for a concert at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 19, in the University’s Houlihan McLean Center (corner of Mulberry St. & Jefferson Ave.). The concert is part of the University’s Family Weekend celebration. Admission is free and the concert is open to the public.

An award-winning performer, composer, conductor, arranger and educator, Gordon has been a part of The University of Scranton community since his first visit in 1996, returning regularly to perform and teach. He received an honorary doctorate from Scranton in 2006 and served as commencement speaker that year, delivering the commencement address using his “real voice” – his trombone. He has composed and premiered three major works through the University’s World Premiere Composition Series, and was also a featured participant when the University hosted the 23rd annual conference of the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts in 2013.

Gordon has taught at major conservatories throughout the U.S. and abroad, performed in both classical and jazz venues throughout the world, and has performed and recorded with many of the world’s greatest musicians. He has recorded 21 solo CDs as well as a truly prodigious number of recordings as a co-leader and sideman, and received the Jazz Journalists’ Association Award for Trombonist of the Year nine times since 2001. He was also awarded the Jazz Journalists Association and Downbeat Critics’ Choice Awards for Best Trombone numerous times. He has also served as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department. (www.wycliffegordon.com)

Schoenberg, a performer, historian, writer, conductor, and teacher of jazz, is Founding Director and Senior Scholar at 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. His first book, “The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Jazz,” was published by Perigee Books, with an introduction by Wynton Marsalis. He has performed and recorded with a stunning number of jazz legends, including Marsalis, Benny Carter, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Heath, John Lewis, Mel Lewis, Marian McPartland and Dr. Billy Taylor. He served as bandleader/music director for Benny Goodman in his later years. 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.” (www.lorenschoenberg.com)

The University of Scranton Jazz Band is a 28-member big band style ensemble, and The University of Scranton Concert Choir is a 70-voice mixed chorus. Both are made up of University student musicians from majors spanning the curriculum, with none majoring in music. Each ensemble performs four or more concerts per year, and the majority of their performances are open to the public, free of admission charge, and often feature a nationally or internationally renowned guest soloist.

For additional information, email Conductor/Director of Performance Music Cheryl Y. Boga at music@scranton.edu or call 570-941-7624, or visit www.scranton.edu/music.

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