Performers
Program
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra: The Music of Duke Ellington
Marsalis: Swing Symphony*
*Indicates SPAC Premiere
Program Notes
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), comprising 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center resident orchestra since 1988. Under Music Director, Grammy Award® and Pulitzer Prize winner Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra performs a vast repertoire, from rare historic compositions to Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned works, including compositions and arrangements by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, and many others.
Commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, Swing Symphony is Marsalis’s third symphonic work, which he describes as a symphonic meditation on the evolution of swing. Swing Symphony will feature both JLCO and The Philadelphia Orchestra, following an opening piece by Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Fun Facts!
- Jazz at Lincoln Center, the newest constituent member of New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, was formed in 1987. From the very beginning its Music Director has been and continues to be the charismatic trumpet player, Wynton Marsalis.
- Although he grew up listening to, playing, and loving classical music, Marsalis neither had any intention of writing for a classical orchestra nor did he study composition. Marsalis said that he learned to write for a jazz orchestra on the fly, and that his main motivation was Kurt Masur, one of his friends who would tease him and say that he was afraid to write for the NY Phil – so, to prove him wrong, Marsalis wrote his first orchestration.
- Marsalis is now considered a prolific and inventive composer. He is the world’s first jazz artist to perform and compose across the full jazz spectrum from its New Orleans roots to bebop to modern jazz. He has also composed a violin concerto and four symphonies to introduce new rhythms to the classical music canon in addition to becoming the first jazz composer to have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for Blood on the Fields.
Read more here:
- S. Premiere of Swing Symphony to be Broadcast Live on PBS: https://wyntonmarsalis.org/news/entry/u-s-premiere-of-swing-symphony-to-be-broadcast-live-on-pbs
- Wynton Marsalis on composing his Swing Symphony: https://wyntonmarsalis.org/videos/view/wynton-marsalis-on-composing-his-swing-symphony/P8
- Biography (Winton Marsalis): https://wyntonmarsalis.org/about/bio
Event to Follow
Live at the Jazz Bar! With Chuck Lamb
Time: 10PM
Where: Jazz Bar
About Live at the Jazz Bar: Stroll up the hill to the Hall of Springs Jazz Bar to enjoy live jazz music by acclaimed regional ensembles. The series is courtesy of Freihofer’s Baking Company, the longtime title sponsor of SPAC’s iconic Saratoga Jazz Festival.
Venue: Jazz Bar
