June 2, 2005

RIJF Eastman Jazz Showcase Concert:
2005 Scholarship Winners

Monday, June 13 · Eastman Theatre

7:30 PM - ECMS Youth Jazz Orchestra (Howard Potter)
8 PM - RIJF scholarship awards announced; Jazz Performance Workshop Honors Unit
8:30 PM - Eastman Jazz Ensemble (Bill Dobbins) with Bob Sheppard

Students who have been selected as scholarship and award winners throughout the 2004-05 academic year will come together for one major "winners showcase" concert on June 13, under the musical direction of Harold Danko, acclaimed jazz pianist and chair of the School's jazz studies department.

Three Eastman Community Music School (ECMS) students playing in the youth orchestra conducted by Howard Potter, which will open the concert at 7:30 p.m., are winners of the RIJF Scholarship, given to high school seniors chosen for their musical abilities and accepted to Eastman's jazz studies program. Each of these students will enroll in the Eastman School of Music in the fall of 2005.

Bob Sheppard, an Eastman graduate and one of the most highly respected and well-known improvising saxophone artists on the music scene today, will sit in with the Eastman Jazz Ensemble, conducted by Bill Dobbins. Currently a member of The Peter Erskine Trio, Sheppard toured with Chick Corea and Origin for two years and is featured on Corea's Grammy-nominated CD, Change. Sheppard has played with artists including Freddie Hubbard, Mike Stern, Randy Brecker, Horace Silver, Lyle Mays, Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band, Billy Childs, Nat Adderley, Steely Dan, Rickie Lee Jones, Manhattan Transfer, Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman and many others.

Among the award-winning student artists who will play with the Eastman Jazz Ensemble and the Jazz Performance Workshop Honors Unit on June 13 are 2004 Downbeat Magazine Student Award winning drummer Jared Schonig. Other current award-winning students and recent alumni performers include Shirantha Beddage - saxophone, Mamiko Kitaura - piano, Dan Loomis - bass, Brian Shaw - trumpet, Kirsten Edkins - saxophone, and trombonist and arranger Russell Scarbrough.

In addition to Eastman students and graduates, Eastman faculty performers can be found throughout the Festival. The Harold Danko Trio will perform in the Café at the Little Theatre, 240 East Avenue, on Friday, June 10 at 10 p.m.  Long-time partners, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Jeff Hirshfield, will be featured in selections from the trio's SteepleChase CDs.

Presenting music from their latest release, Stop-Start, on Sons of Sound Recordings, Trio East (performing Thursday, June 16, at 6 p.m. in the Big Tent, corner of Gibbs and Main Street, and at the Little Theatre at 10 p.m.) features three Eastman faculty: Drummer Rich Thompson, trumpeter Clay Jenkins, and bassist Jeff Campbell. Jenkins will also be performing in Joe LaBarbara's quintet at the Montage Grille on Monday, June 13 at 6 and 10 p.m.

As the perfect closer to every evening's festivities, guitarist Bob Sneider will lead an open jam nightly, beginning at 10:30 p.m. at the State Street Bar & Grill at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. No two nights' jam sessions will be alike, as any number of Jazz festival musicians may choose to stop in for an evening's music making.

Eastman alumni dominate RIJF

Among the 500-plus musicians who will play at this year's Jazz Festival are many notable Eastman School graduates. Drummer Dave Mancini, leader of the Dave Mancini Quartet (Sunday, June 12, 6 p.m. in the Big Tent), received a Performer's Certificate while he completed his degree at Eastman, and has gone on to play with Doc Severinsen, Maynard Ferguson, Chuck Mangione, and many others. Jared Schonig, featured drummer in the band Paradigm Shift (Sunday, June 12, 8:30 and 10 p.m. in the Big Tent) is a recent Eastman graduate, and Toby Koenigsberg brings his trio home to Rochester (Monday, June 13, 6 p.m. in the Big Tent, and 10 p.m. at the Little Theatre), where he graduated from Eastman with a Master's degree in jazz studies. Rochester music students will remember drummer Ted Poor, an Eastman graduate and former ECMS teacher, who is appearing with Third Wheel (Sunday, June 12, 10 p.m. at the Little Theatre).

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News from 2003-2004
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