WMU HOME > ABOUT WMU > WMU NEWS Just 4 Kicks kicks off Gold Company Jazz Festival March 15, 2005 KALAMAZOO--The a capella sensation Just 4 Kicks returns to the Western Michigan University campus Friday, March 18, at 8:15 p.m. in the Dalton Center Recital Hall. Just 4 Kicks first performed at WMU in 1999. Its March 18 concert serves as the opening event for the 25th annual Gold Company Invitational Vocal Jazz Festival, which continues all day Saturday. General admission tickets for Friday's concert are $15 each and are available through the Miller Auditorium Ticket Office, (269) 387-2300 or toll free (800) 228-9858. Students and senior citizens will be charged $5 each. Four uniquely talented and musically successful vocalists from the West Coast, each with independent careers in the music industry, were thrust together at several Northwest jazz festivals in 1993, and a quartet emerged. Just 4 Kicks' Kirby Shaw, from Ashland, Ore., is one of the most well known choral and vocal jazz composer/arrangers of our time. Randy Crenshaw is among the first-call studio singers and arrangers in Los Angeles. Four Freshmen alumnus Kirk Marcy directs the internationally-acclaimed vocal jazz ensemble Soundsation at Edmonds Community College, just north of Seattle. Vijay Singh, widely known for his versatility as a composer, arranger, soloist and director of the vocal jazz program at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash., rounds out the quartet. Just 4 Kicks began as a diversion from the active careers of its members. Now, to their great surprise and delight, this talented group finds itself in demand at jazz festivals and clinics throughout the United States and Canada. Media contact: Kevin West, 269 387-4678, kevin.west@wmich.edu WMU News Office of University Relations Western Michigan University 1903 W Michigan Ave Kalamazoo MI 49008-5433 USA 269 387-8400 www.wmich.edu/wmu/news