To Russia with jazz
The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, the orchestra in-residence at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, will perform several special concerts while on tour in Russia May 19-24. These concerts, featuring music by jazz greats Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Carter and Benny Goodman, will be held at various concert halls in several Russian cities, including the Moscow International House of Music, the Kazan State Conservatory, the Philharmonic Hall in Samara and the Spaso House, the residence of American ambassadors in Moscow.
The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra
This tour is not the first time the SJMO has reached out to audiences beyond the United States. In 2008, the orchestra performed several concerts throughout Egypt as part of the “Jazz on the Nile” tour. The Russian tour is intended to bring Russian and American citizens together through the appreciation of jazz as a unique American genre. The tour bridges cultures and promotes the shared values of freedom, cultural diversity, innovation, individuality and creative collaboration.
Charlie Young, professor of music at Howard University and lead alto saxophonist, will stand in for SJMO Maestro David Baker as conductor for the tour. Two tap/swing dancers, Chester Whitmore and Erica Chipman, will accompany the 13-piece big band. Incorporating dance with big-band jazz is truly an American offering that the orchestra hopes will be a new experience for its Russian audiences. Young and the orchestra will select pieces by composers such as Goodman whose work is already known in Russia from his tour there in the 1960s.
The orchestra also will lead a master class at the Ipolitov Music School and a jam session with Russian musicians at a local jazz club after the performance at the Kazan State Conservatory.
The SJMO was founded in 1990 with an appropriation from the U.S. Congress in recognition of the importance of jazz in American culture and its status as a national treasure. The 17-member big band, led by conductor and artistic director Baker, serves as the orchestra-in-residence at the National Museum of American History. Its concerts include transcribed works, as well as new arrangements, commissioned works and programs that illuminate the contributions of small ensembles and jazz masters who contributed to the development of American jazz and defined the music’s character.
Dancer Chester Whitmore
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Posted: 12 May 2011
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Categories:
American History Museum , Feature Stories , History and Culture
The Torch also received this comment via e-mail from the Cultural Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow:
The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow views the SJMO tour as part of its program of bringing premier American artists to Russia during the next year-–and have used the phrase Amerikanskiy Sezony or “Seasons of America”–to give greater prominence to the visiting U.S. artists and ensembles in the months ahead.
Moreover, the U.S. Embassy views the SJMO’s tour as an activity that is happening under the auspices of the Binational Presidential Commission, established by Presidents Obama and Medvedev in 2009 to encourage greater understanding of the cultures, achievements, and nature of our societies. The SJMO’s tour fits squarely within this rubric and underscores a historic conduit for communication that goes back decades to vintage U.S. radio broadcasts and visits by preeminent artists, such as Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong.
William A. James
Cultural Affairs Officer
U.S. Embassy
Moscow, Russia
The up coming Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks (SJMO) concert tour to Russia is supported by the U.S. Embassy of Moscow, with the purpose of presenting premier American artists in Russia. In addition, the SJMO’s tour is under the auspices of the Binational Presidential Commission, established by President’s Obama and Medvedev in 2009 to encourage greater understanding of cultures, achievements and nature of our societies.
Ken Kimery
Executive Producer
Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra