4/14/2005

Contact: K.E. Schwab  -- 724-738-2199;  e-mail: karl.schwab@sru.edu

SRU’S FOURTH ANNUAL JAZZ FESTIVAL TO FEATURE HIGH SCHOOL MUSICIANS

AND WORKSHOPS WITH GRAMMY NOMINEE CONRAD HERWIG

     SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The fourth annual Slippery Rock University Jazz Festival will bring eight, regional  high school jazz ensembles to campus Saturday [April 16] along with guest artist and Grammy nominee Conrad Herwig and a performance by the SRU Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Dr. Stephen Hawk, associate professor of music, for a daylong workshop.

     The day will include a 4:30 p.m. public performance by the SRU Jazz Ensemble in the University Union and featuring Herwig on trombone.

     High school jazz bands from Upper St. Clair, Seneca Valley, North Allegheny and Kiski Area will each performing for 30 minutes, then receive a 30-minute clinic and attend master classes on jazz instruments from clinicians and adjudicators including SRU faculty members Dr. David Glover, Terry Steele and Hawk, who has also hosted the event since its 2002 inception. 

     Herwig, a New York-based jazz trombonist and a member of the jazz faculty at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, has recorded 15 albums as a leader, with his latest on Half Note Records recorded live at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City and titled “Another Kind of Blue: The Latin Side of Miles Davis.” The album features Paquito D’Rivera, Dave Valentin and Brian Lynch and Herwig calls it the long-awaited follow up to the 1998 Grammy-nominated “Latin Side of John Coltrain.” He also has recently recorded solos titled “Land of Shadow,” “Hieroglyphic,” and “Unseen Universe,” among others.

     The trombonists began his professional career in 1980 with the Clark Terry Big Band and later joined the Buddy Rich Orchestra for tours of the U.S. and Europe. He has performed with Slide Hampton’s World of Trombones and Mario Bauza’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra as well as with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Mel Lewis, Bob Mintzer, Henry Treadgill, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones and Frank Sinatra.

     An alumnus of North Texas State University, Denton; Goddard College; and Queens College in Yew York, Herwig offers master classes, seminars and workshops at major university and conservatories around the world and is recipient of performance and teaching grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

PN, PGN, WPN, PR