Friday, november 3, 2023
7:30 PM
Rialto Center for the Arts
with special guest trumpeter and composer
Michael Mossman
to be selected from the following:
Con Alma
Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993) arr. Michael Mossman (b. 1959)
Save the Orangutan
Andrea Motis (b. 1995) arr. Michael Mossman
PAPIRO
Michael Mossman
Speak No Evil
Wayne Shorter (1933-2023) arr. Michael Mossman
Àgua be Beber
Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994) arr. Michael Mossman
Wildflower
Wayne Shorter arr. Michael Mossman
A Night in Tunisia
Dizzy Gillespie arr. Michael Mossman
Michael Mossman
Mossman's early career included a tour of Europe with Anthony Braxton in 1978 and tours with Roscoe Mitchell in the early 1980s. He also did session work in the 1980s, for Styx among others. He played with Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and Machito before joining the Blue Note Records ensemble Out of the Blue in 1985. Following this he worked with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Horace Silver (1989–1991), Gerry Mulligan (1992), Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, Michel Camilo, Bobby Sanabria, Mario Bauza, Eddie Palmieri, and the Philip Morris Superband.[1]
In 2019, Mossman wrote the arrangements for pianist Michel Camilo on the album Essence which also features Michael as trumpet soloist. Mossman received a Grammy nomination in 2013 for Best Instrumental Arrangement for his "Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite for Ellington" recorded on Bobby Sanabria's double Grammy nominated album Multiverse. His work with Academy Award-winning director Fernando Trueba includes scoring music for the Academy Award nominated (2012) film Chico and Rita.
Mossman has been a guest performer, arranger, and conductor with radio orchestras in Germany. He has conducted the Bilbao Orkesta Sinfonica in Spain in a program of his own works. He arranged and conducted "Mambo Nights" with Arturo Sandoval and "Missa Afro-Cubana" with the WDR Bigband of Cologne and Spirits Dancing with David Sanborn with the HR Bigband of Frankfurt (2009). "Latin Jazz Latino" with Joe Gallardo was recorded by the NDR Bigband of Hamburg and released by Skip Records (2006). His ballet Beneath the Mask was performed at Harris Theater in Chicago by Jon Faddis and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble and the Deeply Rooted Dance Company in 2006. His arrangement of Faddis' "Teranga" was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra at Kimmel Center in 2006. His trumpet playing was featured on the Grammy nominated release Afro-Cuban Dream: Live & In Clave (2000) as well as his original composition and arrangement, "57th St. Mambo," on the Grammy nominated release, Big Band Urban Folktales (2007), both with the Bobby Sanabria Big Band. His arrangement of Paquito D'Rivera's "I Remember Diz" was performed by the Louisiana Philharmonic in 2010. He has arranged for the Tri-City Symphony of Davenport, Iowa (2011). His "Latin Tinge" was performed at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with Paquito D'Rivera and the Quartet Indigo string quartet in 2010.
Mossman is Director of Jazz Studies at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College/CUNY and is also on the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York City.
gordon Vernick
Dr. Gordon Vernick is a Professor of Music and Coordinator of Jazz Studies at Georgia State University. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY; a Master of Music from the University of Miami, and a Doctor of Arts from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley.
As a professional trumpet player, he has performed in all musical mediums from symphony orchestra to jazz quartet and has free-lanced all over the world. He is currently active as a clinician, an adjudicator, and as a freelance trumpet player.
As a jazz educator he is the past president of the Georgia Association of Jazz Educators and past chair of the International Association of Jazz Educators Curriculum Committee. He is currently the Director of the Rialto Youth Jazz Orchestra and the musical director of the Rialto Jazz for Kids middle school jazz outreach program.
He is director of the GSU Faculty Jazztet which performs regularly in Atlanta and has appeared at the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the High Museum Jazz Series, the International Association for Jazz Education Conference and many other venues. He has performed with such world-renown jazz artists as Kenny Werner, Clare Fischer, John Hart, Kevin Hays, Conrad Herwig, Marc Copland, Randy Brecker, Paul McCandless, and others. As a clinician/teacher he has served residencies and performed at the Conservatory of San Juan, P.R., the Taipei American School in Taiwan, the Singapore American School, the Bangkok International School, Columbia College Chicago, The Conservatory of Bordeaux, the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and the Royal Northern Conservatory of Manchester, U.K.
His podcasts, Jazz Insights, have been featured on a number of websites including the New York Times and have been downloaded over 12 million times since May 2009 His CD, The Strangest Thing, was released on Jbird Records in May 2008 and his latest CD, Destination, was released in May 2012. He is a Van Laar trumpet clinician.