Date Posted: Jun 8, 2012

The Litchfield Jazz Camp has applied to the CT Humanities Council for funding to present a new lecture series this season entitled “Contemporary Jazz and Its Cultural Roots.” This program will enhance the Camp’s current educational offerings by providing a cultural context for the music our students are studying and playing.

Category: Camp Landing Page

Posted by: ksimpson

This NEW series will be offered all five weeks (7/8-7/13, 7/15-7/20, 7/22-7/27, 7/29-8/3, and 8/5-8/10) and is open to the community (by reservation) as well as our campers.

The goal of each class will be to expose all attending to the rich and diverse cultural origins of American jazz, and how those beginnings paved the way for contemporary innovation. Each week will focus on a different performer, using them as the focal point to make the past relatable: saxophonist Miguel Zenón (2012 Festival Performer), trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire (2012 Festival Performer), pianist Vijay Iyer (2011 Festival Performer), pianist Helen Sung (2012 Festival Performer and camp Teaching Artist), and drummer Matt Wilson (2010 and 2011 Artist in Residence, camp Teaching Artist). Zenón is the winner of a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award; Iyer just won a major new award, the Performing Artist award, from the Doris Duke Foundation; Akinmusire is the winner of jazz’s most prestigious contest, the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition (2007); Sung was part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at the New England Conservatory; Wilson, the Jazz Journalists Association’s “Drummer of the Year (2003)” and many-time DownBeat Readers and Critics Poll winner, has appeared at the Litchfield Jazz Festival 21 times in 17 seasons, more than any single artist.

Call 860-361-6285 for details if you wish and ask to speak with curriculum specialist Julie Rose.

 

Photo by: Greg Laird

Date Posted: Jun 8, 2012

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