PULLMAN, Wash. – A visiting drummer and WSU trumpeter will perform with the WSU Jazz Big Band during a free, public concert at noon Wednesday, Nov. 5, in Bryan Hall at Washington State University. The concert is part of the daylong WSU Jazz Festival for area high school groups.
Drummer and composer Tom Morgan of Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., performs and records with numerous groups, including the Trilogy Big Band, a 17-piece jazz ensemble with two recently released CDs on the Sea Breeze Jazz recording label. In demand as a clinician at festivals and music camps, he is the author of “A Sequential Approach to Fundamental Snare Drum,” “A Sequential Approach to Rudimental Snare Drum,” “The Musical Marimbist” and “The Drumset Reading Workbook.”
Trumpeter Brian Ploeger, a graduate teaching assistant in the WSU School of Music, toured internationally as a featured soloist with Maynard Ferguson’s Big Bop Nouveau Band and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. He has recorded with Michael Feinstein and Maynard Ferguson and has served on the music faculties at Spokane Falls Community College and Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash.
The performance by the WSU Jazz Big Band, under the direction of Regents Professor Greg Yasinitsky, will feature faculty members Dave Hagelganz, saxophone; Brian Ward, piano; Brad Ard, guitar; F. David Snider, bass; and David Jarvis, drums.
The festival will include adjudicated performances throughout the day by visiting school groups; clinics by Morgan, Ploeger and WSU jazz studies faculty members; and an afternoon concert by Jazz Northwest, the WSU faculty jazz ensemble.
The festival is presented by the WSU School of Music, Jazz Society and student music association Allegro. For more information, see http://go.wsu.edu/jazzfestival.
Contacts:
Greg Yasinitsky, WSU School of Music, 509-595-0839, yasinits@wsu.edu
Brian Ward, WSU School of Music, 509-335-7934, brian.ward@wsu.edu