UMaine Chamber Jazz Ensemble Concert Nov. 1
Members of the University of Maine Chamber Jazz Ensemble will present their formal concert in Minsky Recital Hall in the Class of 1944 Hall Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Soloists or small ensembles composed of 11 students and a variety of instruments with piano accompaniment will present great jazz standards and originals by Milt Jackson, Duke Pearson, Charlie Parker, Eddie Harris, John Coltrane, Horace Silver, John L. “Wes” Montgomery, Miles Davis, Du Bose and Dorothy Hayward, George and Ira Gershwin and Charlie Parker. Students will have opportunities to perform solos, according to Karel Lidral, UMaine associate professor of music and ensembles director.
The group is not auditioned and university instrumentalists at all class and skill levels may participate. Ensemble members also represent a wide variety of academic majors.
The organization’s major emphasis is on developing skills in the art of jazz improvisation, in addition to what scholars have called “the other salient aspect of jazz, swing feeling,” Lidral says.
The piano in the ensemble replaces the standard jazz rhythm section, usually piano, bass, and drums, in the same spirit that orchestral reductions for the piano are used by recitalists in the “classical” realm, Lidral says.
The Chamber Jazz Ensemble is a major component of the UMaine minor in jazz studies, which includes classes in jazz improvisation, chamber jazz arranging and piano; jazz history; and the performance of jazz in the chamber ensemble or the Jazz Ensemble.
Tickets are $7; UMaine students are admitted free with a MaineCard. More information is available at the Collins Center for the Arts box office at 581-1755 or online.
Following the Nov. 1 concert, the group will present a free concert from 1-2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30 in the “Jazz Corner” of Union Central in the Memorial Union.
Contact: Karel Lidral, 207-581-1256