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American tenor Neil Shicoff, internationally recognised as one of the pre-eminent tenors of his generation, has performed at the world’s most renowned opera houses, has collaborated with the greatest conductors and directors, and is a GRAMMY® Awards, recording artist with an extensive discography of both solo and full-length opera recordings. His numerous honours include the Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Ehrenmitglied and Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera, and the Golden Mask, Russia’s highest singing and acting honour, for his performance of Eleazar in La Juive. Between 2015-2017 he was also Chief of the Opera of the Mikhailovsky Theatre, St Petersburg. In recent years, he has become known as a celebrated teacher and judge and is highly sought after both privately and as a guest teacher / adjudicator by young artist programmes and competitions around the world. American tenor Neil Shicoff, internationally recognized as one of the pre-eminent tenors of his generation, has performed at the world’s most renowned opera houses, has collaborated with the greatest conductors and directors, and is a GRAMMY® Awards, recording artist with an extensive discography of both solo and full-length opera recordings. His numerous honours include the Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Ehrenmitglied and Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera, and the Golden Mask, Russia’s highest singing and acting honour, for his performance of Eleazar in La Juive. Between 2015-2017 he was also Chief of the Opera of the Mikhailovsky Theatre, St Petersburg. In recent years, he has become known as a celebrated teacher and judge and is highly sought after both privately and as a guest teacher / adjudicator by young artist programmes and competitions around the world.
Sandra Albukrek, a graduate of the Arts-Décoratifs in Paris, is an artist-director and scenographer who draws, paints, sculpts writes and works in performing arts. Following her collaboration with Pina Bausch, she also creates in a smaller format: the book. Her work is a kind of visual philosophical conversation, where color is language, forming a curiosity cabinet of magical objects and dreamlike bestiaries. Creator without limit, the artist decided to link her visual research to classical music. This led to truly original and innovative productions: films of animated paintings presented during live performances. Albukrerk is producer and artistic director of her highly personal creations. Her work has accompanied musicians such as Martha Argerich, Nelson Goerner, Kai Schumacher, Ivry Gitlis and Gábor Takács-Nagy. For the Gala, the artist imagined a unique work of over two hundred original paintings and a scenario full of magic and humour.
Dan Nimmer was born in 1982 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a young man, Nimmer’s family inherited a piano on which he started playing by ear.
Nimmer studied classical piano and eventually became interested in jazz. At the same time, he began playing gigs around Milwaukee.
Upon graduation from high school, Nimmer left Milwaukee to study music at Northern Illinois University. It didn’t take him long to become one of Chicago’s busiest piano players. Working a lot in the Chicago scene, Nimmer decided to leave school and make the big move to New York City where he immediately emerged on the New York scene. In 2005, a year after moving to New York, he became a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as well as the Wynton Marsalis Quintet and Septet, all of which he is currently a member.
Nimmer has performed and recorded with Jimmy Cobb, Norah Jones, Willie Nelson, Renée Fleming, Houston Person, Fareed Haque, Ruben Blades, Lewis Nash, and many more.
He has released six of his own trio albums on the Venus label (Japan).
Jason Marsalis was born in New Orleans, LA on March 4, 1977. He was the sixth son of Ellis and Dolores Marsalis and the fourth son, after Branford, Wynton, and Delfeayo, to pursue music. After receiving a toy drum set at age 3, Jason first studied violin at age 5 and then received a real drum set at age 6. After sitting in at age 7 with his father, pianist Ellis Marsalis, career moments started to happen at an early age. He studied with New Orleans legend James Black, traveled to Boston a month before his 9th birthday to perform on his older brother Delfeayo’s recital at the Berklee College of Music. At age 13, he appeared on the PBS TV show “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” with his father and brothers Branford and Delfeayo and then a year later, performed on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in Delfeayo’s band.
During his senior year in high school in 1994, Marsalis ascended to the drum throne of a new group lead by virtuoso pianist and former sideman for Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts. It was on the day after graduation that Marsalis flew to New York to split time working with his father’s trio at the Iridium while recording his first album with Roberts, “Portraits in Blue”. The album was a fresh take on George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the drums in between a jazz band and symphony orchestra. This concept would be developed with Roberts over the years to come. Despite a demanding touring schedule with Roberts, Marsalis furthered his educational goals by attending Loyola University in New Orleans, as well as studying composition with notable classical composer, Roger Dickerson. While Marsalis made appearances with such international jazz luminaries as Joe Henderson and Lionel Hampton, he was visible on the New Orleans scene working with a diverse cross section of bands from Casa Samba (Brazilian), Neslort (jazz fusion) Summer Stages (children’s theater), Dr. Michael White (traditional jazz) and many others. It was in 1998 that he cofounded the Latin-jazz group Los Hombres Calientes. While recording two albums with the group, Marsalis also produced two albums under his own name, Year of the Drummer (1998) and Music in Motion (2000), as well as producing reissues and current recordings of his father on their self-owned label, ELM Records.
In 2000, Jason left the Los Hombres group to attain more focus with the Marcus Roberts Trio. It was around that time the Marsalis started to play the vibraphone on gigs in New Orleans. This evolved in yet another chapter in Marsalis’ career as he recorded on the vibes with clarinetist Tim Laughlin and drummer Shannon Powell while starting to lead his own band on vibes. In 2005, Marsalis’ made a recording of George Gershwin’s “Concerto in F” with the Marcus Roberts Trio and the Saito Kinen Orchestra. It was a project that involved fusing jazz and classical music and it was an important moment for the Trio. While this exciting event was taking place in Tokyo, Japan, it was marred by the events happening in his hometown, Hurricane Katrina. Even though his career took a slight hit after that event and living in Brooklyn for a year, Jason returned to New Orleans in 2007 to put the pieces back together.
After returning to New Orleans in 2007, his reach with the types of bands widened considerably. Early that year he recorded with John Ellis and Double-wide on a well received album entitled “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow”. He also recorded and produced an album of Thelonious Monk’s music with his father entitled “An Open Letter to Thelonious”. In January of 2008, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) called for him to start teaching the students. He also started working on the traditional jazz scene with musicians such as Lars Edegran and Tommy Sancton at Preservation Hall and Palm Court Jazz Cafe. It was in April of 2008 that Marsalis was asked to play the vibraphone with the legendary Lionel Hampton Orchestra at the Ogden Museum in New Orleans. In fall of that year, he was on a double-bill tour with Doublewide and a jazz-fusion group from Denton, Texas, Snarky Puppy. After that tour, Marsalis would make guest appearances with the group and has developed a following amongst the groups fans.
In 2009, the Marsalis Family would receive the NEA Jazz Masters award. In June of that year, the family would appear at the White House and the Kennedy Center to do a tribute show to their father. The concert was made into an album entitled, “Music Redeems”. Later that year, Marsalis would release his first new album in 9 years and his debut album on vibes, “Music Update”. In 2010, the bassist from the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, Christian Fabien, called him to participate in a recording session with drummer Ed Littlefield and pianist Reuel Lubag. The made two records, Christian’s “West Coast Session” and Ed’s “Walking Between Worlds”. The latter would include folk songs from the leader’s native Alaskan Tlingit tribe from his hometown of Sitka, Alaska. That project inspired the group to be named the Native Jazz Quartet, a group that would arrange folk songs into jazz tunes. Their first recording of that concept was “NJQ Stories”, recorded in 2012. Also in 2012, Marsalis was involved in another genre-breaking collaboration as the Marcus Roberts Trio released an album with banjoist Bela Fleck. The combination of jazz and bluegrass was entitled “Across the Imaginary Divide” and the unit toured successfully that year. Marsalis also managed to do a performance on various percussion at the 2012 Essence Music Festival in New Orleans with Aretha Franklin. Ironically, Franklin would contact Marsalis to do some performances on vibes but sadly, she passed away before anything came to fruition.
2013 was a monumental year in which Marsalis released his next recording as a leader on vibes entitled “In a World of Mallets”. The album went to number 1 on the CMJ Radio Charts and also won an Offbeat Magazine award, a New Orleans music magazine, for best Contemporary Jazz Album. There was even recordings from the drum kit as Marcus Roberts released three recordings that year. Two with Wynton Marsalis, “Together Again – In the Studio” and “Together Again – Live in Concert”, and the ambitious original trio suite from Roberts, “From Rags to Rhythm”. Marsalis’ latest recordings included the follow-up album as a leader, “The 21st Century Trad Band”, and an album he produced for his father entitled “On the Second Occasion”, both released in 2014. 2016 brings the newest release entitled “Heirs of the Crescent City”, a soundtrack to the film “Heirs”, a documentary about the traditions and cultures of New Orleans passed on through generations.
In recent years, Jason has worked more with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He’s recorded three albums, “The Ever Fonky Lowdown”, “A Swingin’ Sesame Street Celebration”, the latter also being a TV special, and “Swing Symphony” with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson. Marsalis is currently teaching adjunct at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
A renowned jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, Goines has been a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and the Wynton Marsalis Septet he was named President & CEO of Jazz St. Louis in September 2023.
Clarinetist, saxophonist, and educator Victor L. Goines is a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and the Wynton Marsalis Septet since 1993, touring throughout the world and recording over twenty-one releases, including Marsalis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning recording Blood on the Fields (Columbia Records, 1997) and The Ever Fonky Lowdown (2020), Marsalis and Eric Clapton (2011), Jazz at Lincoln Center’s A Swingin’ Sesame Street Celebration (2020), The Fifties: A Prism (2020), Black, Brown and Beige (2020), The Music of Wayne Shorter (2020), Jazz for Kids (2019), Swing Symphony (2019), Una Noche con Ruben Blades (2018), United We Swing (2018), Handful of Keys (2017), The Music of John Lewis (2017), The Abyssinian Mass (2016), Big Band Holidays (2016), Live in Cuba (2015) all from Blue Engine Records and, as well as the soundtracks for Ken Burns’ acclaimed documentaries, JAZZ, 1999; Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, 2004 and The War, 2007. Goines has collaborated on three video projects with Cuban clarinetist Janio Abreu. Two videos, Nuestra Herencia Musical (Our Musical Heritage) (2018), Juntos Otra Vez (Together Again) (2019), are with Abreu’s ensemble Aires de Concerto; and the third, Vic and I (2020), is with La Orquesta de Cåmara de la Habana conducted by Daiana Garcia. He is an acclaimed solo artist and leads his own quartet. As a leader, Mr. Goines has ten recordings including A Dance at The Mardi Gras Ball (2016), Morning Swing (2013), and Twilight (2012), all from Rosemary Joseph Records.
A gifted composer, Goines has more than 200 original works to his credit. His commissions include The Four Winds Suite (2021) and Suite for Bird (2014) for the Music Institute of Chicago; Untamed Elegance (2016) and Crescent City (2014) featuring Branford Marsalis for Jazz at Lincoln Center; Benny: Then, Now, Forever! (2009) for The ASCAP Foundation and Columbia College Chicago with support from the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, and Base Line (2002) for the Juilliard School to support the original choreography by Juilliard alumnus Robert Battle and other countless works for hire.
Mr. Goines has recorded, performed, and collaborated with many noted jazz and popular artists such as Terence Blanchard, Ruth Brown, Paquito D’Rivera, Dianne Reeves, Jack McDuff, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Freddie Hubbard, B.B. King, Branford Marsalis, Delfeayo, Ellis Marsalis, Jason Marsalis, Jimmy Heath, James Moody, Dianne Reeves, Marcus Roberts, Wayne Shorter, Chucho Valdez, and Stevie Wonder. Additionally, Goines can be heard on the film scores for the motion pictures Undercover Blues, When Night Falls on Manhattan and Rosewood as well as on music videos featuring Chick Corea, Garth Fagin, Bobby McFerrin, Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, and Linda Ronstadt, and a host of other renowned musicians and ensembles.
Throughout his career, Goines has been deeply committed to the field of jazz education. In November 2007 he was named director of jazz studies and professor of music at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Prior to that appointment, Goines was for seven years inaugural artistic director of the jazz program at the Juilliard School and a faculty member in jazz clarinet and saxophone. During his tenure at Juilliard, the department expanded from a collaborative program with Jazz at Lincoln Center to include formal Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. He has also served on the faculties of Florida A&M University, the University of New Orleans, Loyola University in New Orleans, and Xavier University.
A native of New Orleans, he began studying clarinet at age eight. He received his Bachelor of Music Education from Loyola University in New Orleans in 1984, and his Master of Music from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in 1990.
Don Vappie is an American tenor banjoist/guitarist from New Orleans. He was awarded the prestigious 2021 STEVE MARTIN BANJO PRIZE and was inducted into the BANJO HALL OF FAME in 2022. A lifelong musician, Don also performs as a bassist and vocalist. He is an educator, lecturer, and expert not only about New Orleans jazz but its place and importance in the contemporary music scene. With 8 albums as a leader, Don has also recorded and/or performed with numerous artists including Peggy Lee, Terence Blanchard, Wynton Marsalis, Eric Clapton, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dr. Michael White, Bela Fleck and many more. His latest release, THE BLUEBOOK OF STORYVILLE, is a tribute to Creole Jazz, the melding of cultures containing the influences of the Caribbean in New Orleans jazz and was chosen the top jazz album of 2020 by the The Sunday Times of London. “Vappie brings Crescent City traditions to practically everything he touches.” – Howard Reich – Chicago Tribune
Reginald “Swingdoom” Veal represents the pinnacle of what music should be- balanced extensions of the artist’s aesthetical and spiritual ideas, mixed with a universal awareness for the world that surrounds him. Reginald has a music career that has spanned well over thirty-five years. During these years he has had the pleasure of lending his chops to the Who’s Who among the music world’s luminaries. Reginald’s love and openness for all music that lifts the spirit and touches the depths of the soul, inarguably has contributed to his musical genius and catapulted him among the ranks of the greatest bass players alive today. He believes when music comes from the heart and soul it is real and what comes from the heart reaches the heart. People close to Reginald say he can be a nonconformist. But that is what he thinks his fans love about him the most – the fact that they can depend on him to not follow the norm. Reginald is the alternative to the thing that is so easy to get. He is predictable, but in an unpredictable way. In other words, Reginald “Swingdoom” Veal is “A breath of fresh air.”
A graduate of Thomson High School, Valdosta State University, and The Juilliard School, Christopher Crenshaw started playing piano at three years old and started playing trombone at eleven years old. He grew up playing keyboard with his father Casper in a gospel quartet from Thomson, Georgia, the Echoes of Joy. He has been with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis since 2006 and founded The Georgia Horns in 2011. He’s transcribed music and written arrangements for two Tony Award nominated musicals, After Midnight, and Shuffle Along…. He appears on numerous albums including Marcus Printup’s Ballads All Night, Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues, Paul Simon’s In the Blue Light, Ted Nash’s GRAMMY award-winning The Presidential Suite, and The Abyssinian Mass. Crenshaw has two albums of his own: The Georgia Horns Live at Dizzy’s Club with Marcus Printup, Thomson native Stantawn Kendrick, Kenny Banks, Jr., Kevin Smith, & Brandon McCrae, and Christopher Crenshaw’s ‘The Fifties: A Prism’ with the JLCO featuring Stantawn Kendrick.
Antoine Jaccoud est né à Lausanne. Formé au scénario par le cinéaste polonais Krysztof Kieslowski, il a notamment coécrit et dialogué les films d’Ursula Meier (« Home », « L’Enfant d’en Haut » -ours d’argent à la Berlinale 2012, et tourné à Verbier !- et plus récemment « La Ligne »). Mais Antoine Jaccoud est également un auteur de théâtre dont le premier monologue « Je suis le Mari de Lolo », inspiré du destin tragique d’une actrice porno, donne en 2001 l’un de ses grands rôles à Roland Vouilloz, prix culturel du Valais 2023. D’autres pièces suivront, tel cet « Au revoir », adieu d’un père à ses enfants partis pour Mars écrit pour Mathieu Amalric, et aujourd’hui traduit et joué aussi bien en Amérique latine qu’en Iran, ou ce « (Juste) avant » qu’il écrit pour Marthe Keller et le même Amalric, dont le rôle est aujourd’hui repris par Arthur Nauzyciel, et que jouaient récemment encore, sur les scènes d’Autriche et d’Allemagne, le regretté Peter Simonischek et sa compagne Brigitte Karner.
Christopher Ventris is one of the world’s leading Heldentenors and the pre-eminent Siegmund and Parsifal of his generation. From his acclaimed Bayreuther Festspiele debut as Parsifal in Stefan Herheim’s new production (Daniele Gatti), he went on to innumerable appearances in the role including at Wiener Staatsoper (under both Franz Welser-Möst and Semyon Bychkov), Bayerische Staatsoper (Kent Nagano), Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Bernard Haitink), Opéra national de Paris (Hartmut Haenchen), San Francisco Opera (Donald Runnicles) and at Opernhaus Zürich (Haitink), the latter portrayal immortalised on DVD. As Siegmund (Die Walküre), Ventris has appeared at Wiener Staatsoper (Sir Simon Rattle), Bayreuther Festspiele, (Marek Janowski), Semperoper Dresden (Christian Thielemann), Washington National Opera (Philippe Auguin), Dutch National Opera (Marc Albrecht) and features on a live recording from Wiener Staatsoper (Thielemann).
Elsewhere in the Wagner repertory, Ventris joined Philippe Jordan at Salzburger Festspiele in the title role Rienzi, made his role debut as Tannhäuser under Sir Mark Elder at Opéra national de Paris, and appeared as Lohengrin at Grand Théâtre de Genève, Teatro Real Madrid and The Dallas Opera. His role debut in Tristan und Isolde at Théâtre de la Monnaie under Music Director Alain Altinoglu, was met with great acclaim: “In the love duet, he sang with honeyed warmth, blending handsomely with Isolde and the orchestra below …” and was followed by concert performances at Royal Danish Opera under Lothar Koenigs.
While Wagner’s music has played a key role in the development of his international career, Ventris’ repertoire flexibility has been pivotal to his enduring success: he has been seen as Peter Grimes at Opernhaus Zürich and Deutsche Oper Berlin, Florestan (Fidelio) at Washington National Opera, Sergei (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) in Geneva, Madrid, London and Brussels, and Jimmy Mahoney (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) at Berliner Staatsoper, Opernhaus Zürich and Wiener Staatsoper. Števa in Janáček’s Jenůfa marked his debut at the Metropolitan Opera and he more recently sang Laca in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production at Opernhaus Zürich. Max (Der Freischütz) marked his debut at Teatro alla Scala, he appeared as Pfitzner’s Palestrina at Bayerische Staatsoper and one of his many roles at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden was Manolios in Martinů’s The Greek Passion. His role debut as Prince Andrey Khovansky (Khovanshchina) at Wiener Staatsoper conducted by Semyon Bychkov, was subsequently seen at London’s Royal Albert Hall as part of the 2017 BBC Proms and he returned to the Metropolitan opera in the 2019/20 season in his role debut as Tambour’ Major (Wozzeck), conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and in William Kentridge’s acclaimed production.
Last season, Ventris revisited his success as Tambour’ Major both in production at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia under James Gaffigan and in concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons in Boston and at Carnegie Hall. The current season includes a return to the role of Erik (Der fliegende Holländer) for both Canadian Opera Company under Johannes Debus and Vancouver Opera, and Parsifal with Orquesta de Extremadura under Pablo Heras-Casado.