WSU Jazz Ensemble Concert to Feature Pianist Willis Delony

PULLMAN, Wash. — Pianist Willis Delony will be the special guest for a free concert featuring the award-winning Washington State University Jazz Big Band and VOJAZZ vocal jazz ensemble beginning at 8 p.m. April 12 in Kimbrough Concert Hall.

An associate professor of piano and jazz studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Delony has won national and international acclaim as a jazz and classical pianist, conductor, chamber player, commercial composer, and arranger. His concert explorations of the jazz and classical piano worlds have been showcased in a recording entitled, “A New World A’ Comin’ – Classical and Jazz Connections,” which is now in worldwide distribution. A reviewer for Fanfare magazine wrote that Delony “plays with gusto and finesse, and with an especially nimble rhythmic sensibility, a proper combination of attributes for jazz or any other kind of music-making for that matter.”

Delony has appeared as piano soloist or conductor with orchestras in Wichita, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Toronto, Madison, Wis., Spartanburg, S.C., Rochester, N.Y., Omaha, Nashville, Fort Worth, Shanghai and New Orleans.

The program will open with VOJAZZ, directed by Jennifer Scovell. The ensemble will perform Van Morrison’s “Moondance” featuring the VOJAZZ ladies and an arrangement of “Tears in Heaven” which is an interesting fusion of Eric Clapton’s tune with Bach’s “Air on the G String.” The program will also include “If We Ever” as recorded by Take Six and “Do You Wanna Know” as recorded by the New York Voices.

The Jazz Big Band, directed by Gregory Yasinitsky, will perform Benny Golson’s classic composition “I Remember Clifford” featuring trumpeter Matt Reid, winner at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. Delony will be featured on David Baker’s “The Avenue,” Matt Harris’s “The Prez,” and Gabe Baltazar’s “Bop Suey” in a new arrangement by bassist David Snider, also a winner at the Hampton Festival. Other soloists will include trumpeter Brendan McMurphy, and saxophonists Jr. Tupa’i and Mike Lukich.

Delony’s appearance is made possible with the assistance of the ASWSU Student Entertainment Board.