Opening for the fest Mainstage shows at noon is Anton Kot, is a 20-year-old composer, multi Instrumentalist, and award winner on drums, piano and gamelan. He is currently a talent- scholarship awardee at NYU.
Anton began his studies at Litchfield Jazz Camp at age 11 and spent summers there until he entered college. As a high-schooler, he toured Asia with Sean Jones and Kurt Elling and shared the stage at Carnegie Hall with Wycliff Gordon. He performed on piano and drums with the Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra with special guests Marshall Gilkes, Sherman Irby, and Marcus Printup under the batons of Ted Nash and Tatum Greenblatt at Dizzy’s Club. He also performed at Litchfield Jazz fundraisers and clinics with Doug Munro, Albert Rivera, Don Braden, Nicki Parrott and others.
At 16, Anton performed in the International Gamelan Festival in Solo, Indonesia, with Wesleyan University music faculty and doctoral students. At 18, he was commissioned by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, directed by Alasdair Neale, to write a piece for full orchestra featuring piano. In 2021, he was a Fellowship Scholar in the Honeywell Resonance Institute and performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival on drums with the group L Stop.
Anton will return from a semester abroad touring and gigging in Paris to join Litchfield Jazz Camp’s RA staff and open Day 2 or Litchfield’s 27th Jazz Festival. This is Anton’s first appearance as a leader at an international festival. He leads a star-studded Litchfield faculty band, with Don Braden on sax, Avery Sharpe on bass, Julian Shore on piano, and Jean Caze (TBA) on trumpet.
Don Braden began his career as a young man who left Harvard to tour with Freddie Hubbard and then Wynton Marsalis. Don’s active career as saxophonist, recording artist and educator includes 25 years as Music Director of Litchfield Jazz Camp. Avery Sharpe, a world-renowned bassist and long-time LJC faculty member, was a member of the McCoy Tyner trio for 20 years. Julian Shore, who has led bands with sidemen like Gilad Hekselman, Dayna Stephens, Ben Monder, and Mark Giuliana, first came to LJC at age 12 and has returned for the past 14 summers as an instructor. His most recent collaboration saw him as arranger and pianist for guitarist Dave Stryker’s Strikezone Records February release As We Are. This inventive enterprise pairing a jazz and string quartet has already been hailed as a masterpiece (WBGO). Haitian-born trumpeter Jean Caze won the 2006 International Trumpet Guild Jazz Competition. In 2007 he placed second in the Monk Competition. He tours each year with Michael Buble and teaches at LJC when his touring commitment permits.
This is an exciting moment for Anton who will lead a group of top-flight artists who were his own teachers and remain mentors.
