Music 259: Music, Performance, and Community
Guest Speakers
January 26: Isabelle Jenkins
Isabelle Jenkins '10 is the Interim Director of the Donelan Office of Community-Based Learning at the College of the Holy Cross. There she serves as the liaison between Worcester agencies and Holy Cross faculty, students, and staff to support the CBL program. Among other responsibilities, Isabelle advises the CBL Intern program, creates and facilitates CBL reflection activities, serves on the Civitas planning committee, coordinates the Non-Profit Careers Conference, and manages C.O.R.E. (Worcester College Corps' Online Repository of Asynchronous Content). Currently, Isabelle is a higher education PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her dissertation research centers around culturally responsive teaching and learning. Isabelle earned her Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School in May of 2014. Isabelle graduated from Holy Cross in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in religious studies.
Email: ijenkins@holycross.edu
January 26: Adrien Finlay
Adrien Finlay currently serves as Executive Director of Music Worcester, a performing arts presenting organization based in Central Massachusetts, and focuses on enhancing revenue streams and maximizing new CRM systems. Originally from RI, he pursued studies in music and arts management at Harvard University and American University. With a career that was born out of summer positions at music festivals throughout the Northeast, he previously held posts at the Alexandria Symphony (VA) and Glimmerglass Opera (NY).
Email: adrien@musicworcester.org
February 2: James Welu
Named Director Emeritus of the Worcester Art Museum in 2011, James Welu joined the staff of the Museum in 1974 as assistant curator and went on to serve 6 years as chief curator and 25 years as director. He holds a BA from Loras College, an MA and MFA in studio art from the University of Notre Dame, and a PhD in art history from Boston University. A specialist in 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art, Welu has published and lectured widely and organized a variety of exhibitions. He served as president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and chair of the Accreditation Commission of the American Alliance of Museums. Welu remains active in numerous Worcester organizations, serving on the board of Preservation Worcester, Worcester World Affairs Council, and Friends of Institute Park. Welu continues to lecture at the Worcester Art Museum and is a Visiting Professor at the College of the Holy Cross and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Email: jwelu@holycross.edu
March 2 Masterclass: Dominique Eade
Dominique Eade has been a featured vocalist and composer in the Boston Globe Jazz Festival, the Jazz in Toulon Festival in France, the Molde International Jazz Festival in Norway, the What Is Jazz? Festival in New York, and the Iowa City Jazz Festival, and an artist-in-residence, clinician, and performer at the Wichita and Litchfield jazz festivals. Eade performs regularly in the U.S. and Europe.
A frequent nominee for outstanding jazz vocalist in the Boston Music Awards since 1988, and the 1997 and 1999 winner in this category, Eade was also designated “best jazz singer” in Entertainment Weekly’s Regional Raves in 1997 and nominated for best new artist by the First Annual Jazz Awards (New York) in 1998. She was recognized in the 1998 Down Beat critics poll as “talent deserving wider recognition.”
Her debut CD on RCA Victor, When the Wind Was Cool, appeared in 1998 Top Ten lists in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Boston Phoenix, and in Jazz Times and Jazziz magazines.
Her second RCA Victor CD, The Long Way Home, was released in 1999, with contributions by Dave Holland, Victor Lewis, Mick Goodrick, and Bruce Barth. Her earlier CD, My Resistance Is Low, was voted one of the top ten jazz CDs of 1995 by Billboard.
Eade has recorded with Bruce Barth, Stanley Cowell, Alan Dawson, Benny Golson, Fred Hersch, Dave Holland, George Mraz, Lewis Nash, and Steve Nelson, and has performed with Anthony Braxton, Bill Frisell, Mark Helias, Gene Bertoncini, Peter Leitch, Donald Brown, Butch Morris, Mick Goodrick, Ran Blake, and a number of contemporary ensembles.
In 2006, Eade's recording with pianist Jed Wilson, Open, was named one of the top ten recordings of the year by critics in the Jazz Journalists Association. In 2007, Eade was the recipient of NEC's Outstanding Alumni Award.
https://necmusic.edu/faculty/dominique-eade
March 23: Ken Schaphorst
A founding member of the Boston-based Jazz Composers Alliance, an organization in the tradition of jazz composer-directed ensembles dedicated to the promotion of new music in the jazz idiom, trumpeter and composer Ken Schaphorst has been awarded Composition Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Wisconsin Arts Board, and Meet the Composer.
Created in 1989, the Ken Schaphorst Big Band has featured many of today’s most notable young performers, including John Medeski, Uri Caine, Brad Shepik, Drew Gress, Donny McCaslin and Seamus Blake. Schaphorst has released seven recordings as a leader: Ken Schaphorst Big Band: Making Lunch (1989), Ken Schaphorst Big Band: After Blue (1991), Ken Schaphorst Ensemble: When the Moon Jumps (1994), Ken Schaphorst: Over the Rainbow (1997), Ken Schaphorst Big Band: Purple (1999), Ken Schaphorst: Indigenous Technology (2002) and Ken Schaphorst Big Band: How to Say Goodbye (2016).
Since coming to NEC as chair of the Jazz Studies department in 2001, Schaphorst has directed the Jazz Orchestra in its performance of new music and traditional big band repertoire. In recent years, the ensemble has performed under the direction of guest artists Django Bates, Jimmy Heath, John Hollenbeck, Jim McNeely and Maria Schneider. Named Best College Big Band in the 2004 Downbeat Student Music Awards, the ensemble has won critical acclaim for its recordings and for its performances throughout the country. Schaphorst also founded NEC's Youth Jazz Orchestra in 2008, one of NEC Prep's offerings for high school students.
Schaphorst’s three-movement Concerto for John Medeski, composed for his friend and fellow NEC alumnus, was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has received commissions from the NEA, Marimolin, Orange Then Blue, Boston University, Lawrence University, the Fox Valley Arts Alliance, the Jazz Composers Alliance, the Wisconsin Arts Board, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Ball State University, and Augustana College.
B.A., Swarthmore College; M.M., New England Conservatory; D.M.A., Boston University. Composition with Thomas Oboe Lee, Gerald Levinson, William Thomas McKinley, Bernard Rands. Recordings on JCA, Accurate, Naxos. Former faculty of Lawrence University.
Art Baron, April 2022
Art Baron joined the Duke Ellington band in August 1973 at the age of 23, the last trombonist Ellington ever hired. Previously he had spent time on the road working with Buddy Rich, Stevie Wonder, and James Taylor.
-profile from https://www.discogs.com/artist/270862-Art-Baron