SU Jazz Festival Concert
Local regional high school and middle school bands will be performing and working with guest clinicians throughout the day on Saturday, February 27th as Shepherd University Department of Music hosts the Shepherd Jazz Festival at the Frank Arts Center. The day will also feature master classes and clinics with guest faculty trumpeter Mike Kamuf, pianist Brian Dean, and bassist Kevin Pace, and a jam session with Shepherd University jazz students. Shepherd Jazz Ensembles will perform in concert at 4:00 p.m. on the stage of the Frank Arts Center Theater with the guest clinicians as featured soloists. The concert is FREE and open to the public!
Mike Kamuf has performed with the Woody Herman and Tommy Dorsey Orchestras and has recorded as a member of the Alan Baylock Jazz Orchestra. He served as assistant principal trumpet of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra under Maestro David Effron from 1990-92. He holds Bachelor of Music degrees in both Jazz Performance and Music Education from the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University (Youngstown, OH) and a Master of Arts degree in Instrumental Conducting from George Mason University (Fairfax, VA). His compositions and arrangements have been performed by numerous jazz artists and ensembles including the Woody Herman and Glenn Miller Orchestras, the USAF Airmen of Note, James Moody, Eddie Daniels, Sean Jones, Terell Stafford, Bill Watrous and Nick Brignola to name a few. Kamuf is an exclusive writer for the Belwin Division of Alfred Music Publishing with titles in the jazz, string orchestra and concert band catalogs. He also has compositions for jazz ensemble published by UNC Jazz Press, the Neil A. Kjos Music and the FJH Music Company. Since 1992 Kamuf has taught instrumental music for Montgomery County Public Schools and since 1995 has been Director of Bands and Orchestras and Music Department Chairperson at John T. Baker Middle School (Damascus, MD). He has served as a jazz faculty member at Youngstown State University and Montgomery College (Rockville, MD). Kamuf leads his own jazz octet comprised of outstanding musicians from the Baltimore and Washington DC areas.
A versatile and gifted pianist, creative composer, passionate educator and an active performer in the greater Baltimore-Washington metro area, Brian Dean started playing the piano at age 8, and was playing professionally by the age of 10. He has been a featured soloist and accompanist in both jazz and classical idioms, has written for several acclaimed ensembles, and his debut trio CD as a leader “Waiting for Answers.” He earned his doctorate in jazz studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he was also a graduate teaching assistant. He is also a graduate of the prestigious University of Miami’s Frost School of Music where he received a masters degree in jazz pedagogy with academic distinction. He also holds a bachelors degree in classical piano from Central Washington University. As a performer, he has played with Nancy King, Brad Goode, Allen Vizzutti, John Fedchock, Kristin Korb, Johannes Weidenmueller, and Steve Houghton, among others. He regularly performs in Denver’s premier jazz venues and has performed at the national MENC and IAJE conventions, as well as several other festivals throughout the country. As a composer, his works have been featured in several university ensembles throughout the country.
A winner of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award, bassist Kevin Pace is gaining the attention of the straight-ahead jazz scene. He has performed with musicians such as Gretchen Parlato, David “Fathead” Newman, Jon Metzger, Freddie Redd, Jon Ozment, Steve Fidyk, Steve Abshire, John Jensen, and Greg Hyslop, a four-star recording artist in Downbeat Magazine. Pace has toured throughout Germany and Austria as well as in his own area, including a several spots at the East Coast Jazz Festival, where he returned as an assistant clinician for the 2002 festival and as a member of the Adam Janjigian Quartet in 2004 and 2005. He is also active as a composer and arranger. Among other projects, Pace has completed the soundtrack for Elon University’s Global Studies CD-Rom (Carpe Viam Press, 2001) and “How To Carve A Pumpkin” (Beardog Productions, 2004), an independent film by Rady Large. As well as being an active jazz musician Pace has become one of Maryland and central North Carolina’s most reliable freelancing bassists performing in the orchestra of the Long Leaf Opera Company of Durham North Carolina and in pit orchestras for musicals such as “Urinetown”, “A Chorus Line”, “The Music Man”, “Company”, and over thirty more throughout the East Coast. Pace earned his B.A. in music from Elon College and has completed a MM in jazz performance at the University of Maryland. He joined the music faculty of Shepherd University in Fall 2013.
The Jazz Program at Shepherd University has an outstanding faculty including Dr. Kurtis Adams, Kevin Pace, Anthony Pirog, Ronnie Shaw, and Dr. Mark Andrew Cook. Each year the ensembles work with major jazz performers in clinics and concerts. The group has worked with Kenney Werner, Bill Watrous, Paquito D’Rivera, Alan Vizzutti, Ingrid Jensen, Claudio Roditi, Tim Hagans, Hal Galper, Juanita Williams, Chris Vadala, John Fedchock and Maria Schneider.
The Shepherd University Jazz Ensemble has performed throughout the East Coast and Europe and has participated in Jazz Festivals around the globe. Invited to the world-renowned Montreux Jazz festival in 2003, the Jazz Ensemble played throughout Switzerland and Italy on a 9-day concert tour. In 1999, the band took their Ellington Tour to England and France, and toured England in May 2007. In the United States they have been featured at the Longwood, the Blue Ridge, and The East Coast Jazz Festivals, as well as regional festivals throughout Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.
For more information call 304-876-5555.