Jazz ensembles offer preview concert
Jan. 2, 2003
KALAMAZOO -- Two Western Michigan University jazz ensembles selected to perform at this year's International Association of Jazz Education conference will offer a preview concert Tuesday, Jan. 7, in the Dalton Center Recital Hall beginning at 8:15 p.m.
Tickets are $10 and are available at the door. Students and senior citizens will be admitted for $5.
Offering a preview of the music they will perform at the IAJE conference are the Sunny Wilkinson Group and the Bartosz Hadala Quintet. The conference is Jan. 8-15 in Toronto.
Sunny Wilkinson is a professor of vocal jazz in the School of Music and an internationally acclaimed artist. The Bartosz Hadala Quintet is a student group led by Polish pianist and WMU senior Bartosz Hadala, and includes sophomore Aaron Kruziki on saxophone, sophomore Chris Lawrence on trumpet, sophomore Matt Heredia on bass and drummer Chris Earley, a graduate assistant in the School of Music. The group is coached by Tom Knific, professor of jazz studies.
Invitations to perform at the annual IAJE conference are considered one of higher honors for collegiate jazz performers and ensembles. The WMU School of Music has been represented at the conference by student or faculty performances nine of the past 10 years, and this is the seventh time in the past decade that WMU's jazz studies program has been honored with multiple invitations to perform.
Media contact: Kevin West, 269 387-4678, kevin.west@wmich.edu