Concert to feature Chuck and Brooke Ferris Florence

On Tuesday, October 18, 2005, a concert featuring guest saxophonists Chuck and Brooke Ferris Florence will be presented at 8:00 pm in Kimbrough Concert Hall on the WSU Campus. The concert will include classical and jazz saxophone playing and will be free of charge.

Chuck Florence is a musical chameleon who performs everything from funk to salsa to big band to contemporary jazz. Raised in the Detroit and now based in Montana, Chuck has performed with the Dukes of Dixieland, Joe Williams, Roy Haynes, Joe Lovano, James Moody, Nat Adderly, Larry Coryell, among others, and recorded two CD’s as leader: Home on the Range, featuring Jaki Byard (Cadence #1052) and Remembering Jim Pepper, (Saxophile #0428).

Brooke Ferris Florence earned her Bachelors degree from the University of Montana and subsequently completed her Masters degree at Northwestern University. In 1994 Brooke was invited to compete at the First International Saxophone Competition of Adolphe Sax in Dinant, Belgium. She founded and was the director of the Montana Saxophone Festival from 1996 through 1999, and in 1998 she was a recipient of a Montana Arts Council fellowship award.

Brooke maintains a large saxophone studio in Missoula, Montana. She is a member of the quartet “Tango Nouveau”, which performs the music of Astor Piazzolla as well as contemporary works from a number of diverse international composers. Brooke gives master classes and performs regularly in chamber music and solo recital concerts throughout the northwestern United States and Canada.

Also performing will be WSU Saxophone Professor Greg Yasinitsky. The program will include a number of Yasinitsky’s classical saxophone pieces including his Saxophone Quartet, written for the Montana Saxophone Festival and dedicated to Brooke Ferris Florence, Double Edge for saxophone and piano and Three Canonic Duets which will be performed by Yasinitsky and Ferris Florence.

Chuck will perform the jazz standards “Body and Soul,” “Chega De Saudade” (No More Blues), “Over the Rainbow” and “Voyage” with WSU jazz faculty members Charles Argersinger, piano; David Snider, bass; and David Jarvis, drums.

The concert will also feature pianist Nola Swanson, a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Music, and undergraduate saxophonists Chris Siegmund and Patrick Sheng. This concert is made possible in part by the WSU Jazz Society and the ASWSU Student Entertainment Board.