Friday March 30th and Saturday March 31st
Curt Hanrahan Quintet at the Jazz Estate
With Arturo O'Farrell

MARCH 30th - 5th Annual Woody Herman Jazz Educational Workshop

Featuring guest artists Arturo O’Farrill and David Bixler with the Milwaukee Jazz Orchestra

ARTURO O’FARRILL, pianist, composer extraordinaire, educator and winner of the Latin Jazz USA Outstanding Achievement Award for 2003, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. In 2002, Mr. O’Farrill created the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center due in part to a large and very demanding body of substantial music in the genre of Latin and Afro Cuban Jazz that deserves to be much more widely appreciated and experienced by the general jazz audience. His debut album with the Orchestra “Una Noche Inolvidable” earned a GRAMMY award nomination in 2006. In 2008, he and the Orchestra won a GRAMMY for Best Latin Jazz Album for “Song for Chico.”

Educated at the Manhattan School of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory, and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Mr. O’Farrill played piano with the Carla Bley Big Band from 1979 through 1983. He then went on to develop as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Freddy Cole, The Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.

In 1995 Mr. O’Farrill agreed to direct the band that preserved much of his father’s music, Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, which has been in residence at Birdland, New York City’s famed nightclub, for the past 13 years, as well as performing throughout the world as a solo artist and with his smaller groups.

Besides recording eight albums as a leader for Milestone Records, 32 Jazz, Zoho and M & I (Bloodlines, A Night in Tunisia, Cumana Bop, Live in Brooklyn, The Jim Seeley/Arturo O’Farrill Quintet, Song for Chico with the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and In These Shoes, with Claudia Acuna), Mr. O’Farrill has appeared on numerous records including the Grammy-nominated Heart of a Legend, Carambola, and the soundtrack to the critically acclaimed movie Calle 54. Mr. O’Farrill was a special guest soloist at three landmark Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts—Afro-Cuban Jazz: Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, November 1995; Con Alma: The Latin Tinge in Big Band Jazz, September 1998; and the 2001 Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala: The Spirit of Tito Puente, November 2001. In the Spring and Fall of 2002, he was also the featured artist in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz in the Schools Tour, when he led a Latin jazz quintet for more than 50 educational performances that reached over 10,000 students in NYC metropolitan area schools.

As an educator, he has taught master classes, seminars and workshops throughout the world for students and teachers of all levels. Recently, Mr. O’Farrill received the Distinguished Alumnus Medal from Brooklyn College and served as the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist in Residence at Lafayette College. In the summer of 2007, Mr. O’Farrill served as Visiting Artist at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and in 2007-2008 was Assistant Professor of Jazz at The University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

Throughout the past few years, Mr. O’Farrill has toured. the U.S., Europe and Asia, and in the Spring of 2006, led the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra on a tour of Mexico. In 2007, the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra left Jazz at Lincoln Center to pursue its own educational and performance opportunities. To that end, the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance was created as a not for profit organization dedicated to the preservation, furthering, and education of Afro Latin jazz.

Since their departure from Jazz at Lincoln Center, the orchestra has performed in the prestigious Megaron concert hall in Athens, The Bern Jazz Festival, The Rialto Concert Hall in Atlanta and with their new performance partner New Yorks’ acclaimed Symphony Space they have presented their own concert season ending 2008 with Musica Nueva their celebration of latin jazz throughout the Americas. They have also established a residency in the schools program with weekly private and ensemble classes for inner city kids.

A recognized composer, Mr. O’Farrill has received commissions from Meet the Composer, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Philadelphia Music Project, and The Big Apple Circus. He has also composed music for films including Hollywoodland and Salud. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, classical pianist Alison Deane, and their sons, Zachary and Adam, both accomplished musicians, and students at Laguardia High School for the Performing Arts. He is currently on the faculty of SUNY Purchase.

David Bixler:

Alto saxophonist, composer, and educator David Bixler has been steadily garnering attention for his unique playing and writing. Since moving to New York City from his native Wisconsin, David has performed and toured with the orchestras of Lionel Hampton, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Duke Ellington. In 2000 he joined the Chico O'Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra which was the beginning of several musical collaborations with GRAMMY award winning pianist Arturo O’Farrill. In 2008 he was invited to join the pianist’s RISA NEGRA sextet. On the band’s 2009 ZOHO release, “RISA NEGRA”, David is also represented as a composer. His tune, “The Darkness Is My Closest Friend”, was cited by Down Beat magazine as, “the most intriguing offering on the disc.” David’s newest recording, “Auction Project,” which is co-led with Arturo O’Farrill, will be released in September of 2010 on ZOHO. Auction Project is a unique combination of jazz, Latin, and Irish music which fearlessly traverses borders. As an educator and clinician David appears at colleges and universities thorough out the world. Since 2008 he has been an Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at Bowling Green State University.

Jazz Workshop – March 30, 2012, all day

Open to Middle and High School workshop participants

The Jazz Studies Program

SONS OF DAUGHTERS TRIO:

• Patrick Breiner (woodwinds)
• Aaron Darrell (bass)
• Devin Drobka (drums)

This young trio ... were mighty impressive. Sons of Daughters have found their own way of defining and making their trio into a distinctive force. I look forward to whatever they come up with next.

- Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery

Sons of Daughters connected improvisation with melody with a sense of purpose without limits. Their use of voice as an instrument added another element to the famed pianoless jazz trio formation.

- David Henry, Director of Programs, Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

QUINSIN NACHOFF's FORWARD MOTION

NYC-based Canadian composer and saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff is bringing it back home for a Canadian tour with his latest recording project Forward Motion.
Quinsin will be joined for this tour by a line-up of brilliant young players coming out of NYC. The tour will feature pianist Andy Milne “a highly intelligent, thoughtful player” (JAZZWISE MAGAZINE), percussionist Dan Weiss “unique among today's jazz drummers” (ALL ABOUT JAZZ) and the “simply amazing” (CADENCE MAGAZINE) “spine-tingling” (JAZZWEEKLY.COM) Russ Johnson on trumpet, who was also featured on the FoMo recording released in 2010.

This sleek new group uses the distinctive Fender Rhodes sound as its anchor. Featuring "one of Canada's leading saxophone innovators" (TORONTO STAR) Forward Motion creates “splendid examples of imagination, wit and daring yet show[s] a keen understanding of jazz traditions…superbly shaping new musical scenery.” (WHOLENOTE MAGAZINE) Nachoff’s “advanced and viscerally hard-hitting original music” offers a “pure, bracing, thought-provoking” (THE OTTAWA CITIZEN) experience alongside “intelligent, questing and graceful ideas” (THE AUSTRAIAN).

Nachoff's compositions have been described as "jaw-droppingly impressive" (ALL MUSIC GUIDE) and critics have heralded him as “Funky, passionate and intellectually probing, Nachoff is the total package.” (EXCLAIM)

Milwaukee, WI – January 30, 2012 – The Wisconsin Conservatory of Music is extremely proud and 
excited to announce that its Jazz Institute Batterman Ensemble has been selected as a finalist to 
compete in the 2012 Charles Mingus High School Jazz Competition, February 17-19 in New York, New York.