UW Honors Jazz Band UW Jazz Orchestra Chris Rottmayer and Matthew Endres, directors

featuring special guest Sharel Cassity, saxophone

Thursday, April 18, 2019 7:30 p.m. Music Hall 925 Bascom Mall

2018 | 2019 UW HONORS JAZZ BAND UW JAZZ ORCHESTRA Chris Rottmayer and Matthew Endres, directors Sharel Cassity, saxophone

PROGRAM

UW Jazz Orchestra

Papa Lips...... Bob Mintzer (b. 1953)

I Get Along Without You Very Well...... Hoagy Carmichael (1899–1981) arr. Alan Ferber

Jigsaw...... Alan Ferber (b. 1975)

Sharel Cassity, saxophone

Say What!?...... Sharel Cassity (b. 1978) arr. Michael Philip Mossman

Sharel Cassity, saxophone

Mead Witter School of Music performances are recorded. Please silence or turn off all cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices. Thank you for helping us maintain a silence in the hall that is conducive to music-making. UW Honors Jazz Band

Computer...... Mintzer

Airegin...... Sonny Rollins (b. 1930) arr. Bill Holman

Qintessence...... Quincy Jones (b. 1933)

Sharel Cassity, saxophone

C-Jam Blues, a la Mambo...... Duke Ellington (1899–1974) arr. Mossman ABOUT THE GUEST ARTIST

Saxophonist, multi-reedist, composer, bandleader, recording artist, and educator Sharel Cassity is a distinguished musician based in Chicago. Cassity has been named a Rising Star in DownBeat Magazine for the past nine consecutive years, won the 2007 ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award, and was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 2010. She holds a master’s degree from The Juilliard School and a bache- lor’s degree from The New School’s School of Jazz and Contemporary Music.

Known for her fiery and soulful style of improvising and expert ensemble skills, Cassity is a versatile sideman, having performed regularly alongside renowned artists Roy Hargrove, Lewis Nash, Joe Chambers, and Darcy James Argue. A current member of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban Experience, Nicholas Payton’s TSO, Cyrus Chestnut’s Brubeck Quartet, and the Jimmy Heath Big Band, Cassity has toured twenty-four countries and performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, and North Sea Jazz Festival. She was lead alto in the Diva Jazz Orches- tra from 2007 to 2014 and performed in the Broadway musical After Midnight as well as Maurice Hines’s Off-Broadway productionTappin’ Through Life. Other jazz lumi- naries she has performed with include Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Natalie Cole, Christian McBride, Gregory Porter, James Moody, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Slide Hampton, Maceo Parker, and Terrence Blanchard. In pop music, Cassity has recorded with Natalie Merchant, Aretha Franklin, Vanessa Williams, K.D. Lang, Fantasia, Trisha Yearwood, Seth MacFarland (Family Guy), Ruben Blades, and DJ Logic.

Cassity has lead her own projects, Elektra and the Sharel Cassity Quartet, to the DC Jazz Festival, Winter Jazzfest, Blue Note Jazz Festival, Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival, Monty Alexander Jazz Festival, Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, Martha’s Vineyard, Kennedy Center, National Museum of the American Indian (part of the Smithsonian Insitution), Blue Note Jazz Club, Dizzy’s Club, Birdland, Smalls Jazz Club, Smoke Jazz, the Jazz Showcase, Mexico (a 2016 five-city tour) and more.

Cassity’s latest album, Evolve (Relsha Music), is her group Elektra’s debut album and fourth album release as bandleader. Her previous releases, Just for You (DW Records, 2008), Relentless (Jazz Legacy Productions, 2009), and Manhattan Romance (Venus Records, 2014) feature stellar bands and established Cassity as a formidable talent on the international stage and throughout North America. The albums received top-rated reviews in JazzTimes, JAZZIZ Magazine, and DownBeat Magazine. Relentless’s title track, “Relentless,” was played on more than one hundred radio stations and was on the JazzWeek charts for thirty-two consecutive weeks.

Cassity appears in three books, I Walked with Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath by Jimmy Heath, AM Jazz: Three Generations Under the Lens by Adrianna Mateo and Freedom of Expression: Interviews with Women in Jazz by Chris Becker. She has also been featured on the cover of Saxophone Journal and in American Indian Magazine. Cassity is an alumna of audition-based programs JEN’s Sisters in Jazz, Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead, and Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute. She is the recipient of numerous DownBeat Student Music Awards in both the composition and ensemble performance categories.

In addition to performing, Cassity has always been passionate about teaching and inspiring future generations of musicians. Cassity currently is a professor of saxophone and piano at Elgin Community College in Elgin, Illinois. Students from her private studio have won scholarships to the Hartt School of Music and placement in Jazz for Teens, Jazz House Kids, and the Jazz Standard Youth Orchestra. She has taught inter- nationally in Japan, Costa Rica, Mexico, and China, and was the woodwind professor at Qatar Music Academy in Doha, Qatar for the 2016–17 academic year. She has given numerous clinics on the saxophone, jazz language, rhythm, harmony, and music business.

Cassity is a Vandoren Performing Artist, RS Berkeley Virtuoso Saxophone Artist, and AMT Microphone Artist.

UW JAZZ ORCHESTRA Chris Rottmayer, director

SAXOPHONES TROMBONES Keegan Downham, lead, alto I Steven Beda, lead Taylor Schufelt, alto II Spencer Hikade Jacob Epp, tenor I Pierson Fisher Alex Horvath, tenor II Nick Hanke, bass Alex Pavelic, baritone RHYTHM TRUMPETS Dante Turkow, guitar Daniel Roth, lead Tyler Lustek, piano Charlie Palm Aden Stier, bass Jack Mulvey Lily Finnegan, drums Nick Peters

UW HONORS JAZZ BAND Chris Rottmayer and Matthew Endres, directors

SAXOPHONES TROMBONES Max Newcomer, co-lead, alto I Jack Ohly, lead Megan Rault, co-lead, alto I Liliana Karnick Ben Foster, alto II Dylan Lehman Jonathan Downs, tenor I Matvei Mozhaev Lucy Croasdale, tenor II Andrew Stein, baritone RHYTHM Dante Turkow, guitar TRUMPETS Althea Wincek, piano Kira Brown, lead Aaron Brenton, bass Fernando Ponce Jude Fleishman, drums Charlie Watson Eric Hackett ABOUT JAZZ AT UW–MADISON

The Mead Witter School of Music offers a Bachelor of Music in performance (jazz studies) and a Bachelor of Arts in music (jazz studies), as well as a doctoral (DMA) minor in jazz studies. Jazz ensembles and courses in jazz improvisation, theory, composition and arranging, and history are also available to all music majors and non-music majors. Each year, the jazz ensembles perform with a variety of guest artists. Interested students should visit www.music.wisc.edu/jazz for information on application dates and procedures.

The UW Jazz Orchestra workshops and performs music ranging from the classic big band repertoire to contemporary and cutting-edge concert jazz music by today’s leading jazz composers. The UW Jazz Orchestra was founded in 1968 as the Mead Witter School of Music’s first jazz and popular music ensemble by trombone profes- sor Allen Chase. Its previous directors have included bassist Richard Davis, saxo- phonist Les Thimmig, trombonist Claude Cailliet, and trumpeter Jim Doherty.

The UW Honors Jazz Band is a big band for Madison-area high school students looking for an additional opportunity to perform advanced jazz repertoire together with like-minded peers. Participating students work with UW–Madison jazz faculty and students from the UW Jazz Orchestra over the course of four rehearsals in two weeks to prepare for a final concert each spring in UW–Madison’s Music Hall.

JAZZ STUDIES FACULTY Johannes Wallmann, director of jazz studies, UW Jazz Orchestra, and Blue Note Ensemble Matthew Endres, jazz percussion, jazz history Mark Hetzler, trombone Russ Johnson, jazz trumpet Nick Moran, jazz bass, director of Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble Louka Patenaude, jazz guitar John Wm. Schaffer, music theory, director of Jazz Standards Ensemble Les Thimmig, saxophone, director of Jazz Composers Group

JAZZ TEACHING ASSISTANTS Jonathan Greenstein, director of Contemporary Jazz Ensemble Chris Rottmayer

2019 UW HONORS JAZZ BAND FACULTY Chris Rottmayer, interim director of UW Jazz Orchestra, spring 2019 Matthew Endres, professor of jazz history and jazz percussion Jonathan Greenstein, director of Contemporary Jazz Ensemble UPCOMING JAZZ EVENTS

Blue Note Ensemble and Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble Tuesday, April 23, 2019 | 7:30 p.m. | Morphy Recital Hall | free John Wm. Schaffer and Nick Moran, directors

UW Jazz Orchestra Friday, May 3, 2019 | 5:00–7:00 p.m. | Rathskeller, Memorial Union | free Chris Rottmayer, UW Jazz Orchestra interim director

The Mead Witter School of Music gratefully acknowledges the Vilas Trust, the Anonymous Fund, and its many donors for supporting these concerts and other activities at the School of Music.

Special thanks to WORT 89.9 FM, Wisconsin Public Radio, and the Greater Madison Jazz Consortium for their publicity support of our concert season. www.music.wisc.edu [email protected] | (608) 263-1900