16th Annual Herb Pomeroy Memorial Concert - Celebrating The 60th Anniversary of Jazz@MIT
Saturday, March 2, 2024
8:00 PM, Kresge Auditorium, MIT
MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, Frederick Harris, Jr., Music Director
Miguel Zenón, saxophonist-composer, MIT Assistant Professor in Jazz
MIT Alumni Jazz Band
MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, Laura Grill Jaye, Director
MIT Chamber Music Society Jazz Combo, Keala Kaumeheiwa, Director
MIT Jazz Advance Music Performance Ensemble, Miguel Zenón, Director
MIT Institute Professor Emeritus John Harbison & Strength In Numbers (S.I.N), MIT faculty jazz combo
Mark Harvey, MIT Senior Lecturer Emeritus, guest composer
Evan Ziporyn, MIT, Distinguished Professor in Music, guest clarinetist
This unique event combines the 60th anniversary of the creation of MIT’s formal jazz studies program with its annual concert honoring its founder, Herb Pomeroy (1930-2007), MIT’s “Father of Jazz.” Featuring every part of MIT’s jazz performance program as well as the MIT Alumni Jazz Band and Strength In Numbers (faulty jazz combo), the concert also celebrates the recent appointment of saxophonist-composer and Multiple Grammy Nominee and Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón, as Professor in Jazz at MIT. The program includes performances by and compositions of Zenón’s along with music by Ellington, Hancock, and others.
Click here to view the livestream
ABOUT MIGUEL ZENÓN
Multiple Grammy Nominee and Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón represents a select group of musicians who have masterfully balanced and blended the often-contradictory poles of innovation and tradition. Widely considered one of the most groundbreaking and influential saxophonists and composers of his generation, he has also developed a unique voice as a conceptualist, concentrating his efforts on perfecting a fine mix between jazz and his many musical influences.
Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Zenón has released fifteen recordings as a leader, including the Grammy-nominated Música De Las Américas (2022), El Arte Del Bolero (2021) and Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera (2019) and Yo Soy La Tradición (2018). He has worked with luminaries such as The SFJAZZ Collective, Charlie Haden, Fred Hersch, Kenny Werner, David Sánchez, Danilo Perez, The Village Vanguard Orchestra, Kurt Elling, Joey Calderazzo, Steve Coleman, Ray Barreto, Andy Montañez, Jerry Gonzalez & The Fort Apache Band, The Mingus Big Band and Bobby Hutcherson.
Zenón has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and The Chicago Tribune. In addition, he topped both the Jazz Artist of the Year and Alto Saxophonist of the Year categories in the 2014 JazzTimes Critics Poll and was selected as Alto Saxophonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (when he was also recognized as Arranger of the Year). In 2023 he was recognized by the same organization as the Composer of the Year.
As a composer he has been commissioned by SFJAZZ, NYO Jazz, The New York State Council on the Arts, Chamber Music America, Logan Center for The Arts, The Hyde Park Jazz Festival, The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, MIT, Spektral Quartet, Miller Theater, The Hewlett Foundation, Peak Performances, PRISM Quartet and many of his peers. Zenón has given hundreds of lectures and master classes at institutions all over the world and is a faculty member in the Music & Theater Arts Department at MIT, as well as the current Visiting Scholar for the Harmony and Jazz Composition Department at Berklee College of Music.
In April 2008 Zenón received a fellowship from the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Later that year he was one of 25 distinguished individuals chosen to receive the coveted MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “Genius Grant.” In 2011 he founded Caravana Cultural, a program which presents free-of-charge Jazz concerts in rural areas of Puerto Rico. In 2022 he received an Honorary Doctorate from La Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the highest honor bestowed by the institution.
ABOUT EVAN ZIPORYN
Evan Ziporyn is a composer/clarinetist who has forged an international reputation through his genre-defying, cross-cultural works and performances. At MIT he is Inaugural Director of the Center for Art, Science and Technology (CAST), founder & Artistic Director of Gamelan Galak Tika, and curator of the MIT Sounding performance series.
His music has been commissioned and performed by Yo-yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, Brooklyn Rider, Maya Beiser, Roomful of Teeth, Bang on a Can, Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, the American Composers Orchestra, Sentieri Selvaggi, the American Repertory Theater, Steven Schick, So Percussion, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Sarah Cahill, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. They have been presented at international venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, London’s Barbican Center, the Holland Festival, Brussels Ars Musica, the Singapore Festival, the Sydney Olympics, the Bali International Arts Festival, and Big Ears. His opera A House in Bali (directed by MIT colleague Jay Scheib) was featured at BAM Next Wave in 2010; that same fall his works were featured at a Carnegie Hall Zankel Making Music composer’s portrait concert. His multimedia interactive stallation, Arachnodrone (a collaboration with Ian Hattwick, Christine Southworth & Isabelle Su) is currently exhibited at the MIT Museum, following its 2018 debut at Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
From 1992-2012 he was a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-stars (Musical America’s 2005 Ensemble of the Air), finishing his tenure with the group with an appearance on an episode of PBS’ Arthur. His long-time work with the Steve Reich Ensemble led to sharing a 1999 Grammy for Best Chamber Performance for their recording of Music for 18 Musicians. He is also the featured multi-tracked soloist on Reich’s Nonesuch recording of New York Counterpoint. Other awards include a 2012 Massachusetts Arts Council Fellowship, the 2007 USArtists Walker Award and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Fellowship.
His puppet opera Shadow Bang, a collaboration with master Balinese dalang Wayan Wija, was premiered at MassMOCA and was the centerpiece of the 2006 Amsterdam GrachtenFest. Recordings of his works have been released on Sony Classical, Cantaloupe Music, Islandia Music, New Albion, New World Records, Koch, Innova, CRI, and numerous independent labels. He has collaborated with some of the world’s most creative and vital living musicians, including Brian Eno, Paul Simon, Ornette Coleman, Iva Bittova, Maya Beiser, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Louis Andriessen, Shara Worden, Sandeep Das, Kelley Deal, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Wu Man, Matthew Shipp, Wayan Wija, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, and Ethel.
Recent projects include 2023’s telematic Poppy 88, two 2022 solo albums, Bowie Symphonic: Blackstar (w/Maya Beiser), and daily podcast music for acclaimed filmmaker Caveh Zahedi. His compositions and arrangements were featured throughout Ken Burns’ Vietnam; his arrangements were also featured on Silkroad Ensemble’s Grammy-winning CD, Sing Me Home. Other recent recordings include Terry Riley’s Ki, Eviyan: Nayive (w/Iva Bittova & Gyan Riley), and collaborations with DuoJalal, Czech composer Beata Hlavenkova, and Polish jazz masters Waclaw Zimpel and Hubert Zempel. His performance with the MIT Wind Ensemble of Don Byron’s Clarinet Concerto, commissioned by MIT, and released on Sunnyside Records, received a 5-star Downbeat review.
ABOUT JOHN HARBISON
Composer John Harbison’s concert music catalog of almost 300 works is anchored by three operas, seven symphonies, twelve concerti, a ballet, six string quartets, numerous song cycles and chamber works, and a large body of sacred music that includes cantatas, motets, and the orchestral-choral works Four Psalms, Requiem, and Abraham. He has also penned a substantial body of jazz compositions and arrangements, and cadenzas for major violin and piano concertos.
Harbison has received commissions from most of America’s premiere musical institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As one of America’s most distinguished artistic figures, he is recipient of numerous awards and honors, among them a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize.
Harbison’s 80th birthday season, 2018-2019, was marked with celebrations throughout the country and around the world, including major city-wide celebrations in his two home-towns of Boston, Massachusetts and Madison, Wisconsin. The season included first performances of three major works: the monodrama If, the organ symphony What Do We Make of Bach? and the Sonata for Viola and Piano. Summer festival residencies included Songfest, Tanglewood, Aspen and Santa Fe. Harbison’s published his first book, What Do We Make of Bach: Portraits, Essays, Notes (ARS Nova) in late 2018.
Widely recorded on leading labels, recent CD releases include Concertos for String Instruments (BMOP), Remembering Gatsby (National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, Naxos), Violin Sonata No. 1 (Cho-Liang Lin, Naxos), Late Air (Kendra Colton, Oberlin), Simple Daylight & Piano Sonata No. 2 (Lucy Fitz Gibbon and Ryan McCullough, Albany), String Quartet No. 6 (Lark Quartet, Bridge), Requiem (Nashville Symphony, Naxos), Vocalism(Mary Mackenzie, Albany), and his cadenzas to Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto (David Deveau, Steinway).
The 2019-20 season saw the consortium premiere of the monodrama IF (March, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center) just before the Covid-19 disruption. Premieres postponed due to the pandemic include two new song cycles, In the Early Evening and Four Poems for Robin (Songfest), Mark the Date (Aspen Music Festival), Sleepers Wake, for the Leipzig BachFest, and Passage (Shai Wosner, The Peoples’ Symphony). He recently penned a collection of jazz essays, and is working on a new series of composer reminiscences.
Harbison’s most recent projects include new choral music (Hidden Paths, Frost settings for childrens’ choir) and Cold or Hot (on a passage from Revelations). He also completed Chaconne (for big band), Piano Sonata No. 3, an evolving suite for solo violin, Prelude for Organ, the song cycle and After Long Silence (Yeats), and numerous short piano works, including his contribution to Min Kwon’s America/Beautiful variations project. He is at work on a new piece for Earplay, the 2022 competition piece for the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, a 50th anniversary piece for Collage New Music, a string quintet, and a second volume of pop and jazz songs. His opera The Great Gatsby is due for major revival in 2025, an important anniversary year for both Fitzgeralds’ book and the opera’s premiere.
Harbison has been composer-in-residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Academy in Rome, and numerous festivals. He received degrees from Harvard and Princeton before joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is currently Institute Professor, the highest honor accorded resident faculty. For many summers since 1984 he taught composition at Tanglewood, serving as head of its composition program from 2005 to 2015, often directing its Festival of Contemporary Music. With Rose Mary Harbison, the inspiration for many of his violin works (Violin Concerto, Four Songs of Solitude, Crane Sightings, Violin Sonata No. 2), he has been co-Artistic Director of the annual Token Creek Chamber Music Festival since its founding in 1989. He continues as principal guest conductor at Emmanuel Music (where for three years he served as Acting Artistic Director), and he is a past music director of Cantata Singers. An accomplished jazz pianist, Harbison founded MITs Vocal Jazz Ensemble in 2010, for which he served as coach and arranger, and he is pianist with the faculty jazz group Strength in Numbers (SIN).
Mr. Harbison has been President of the Copland Fund and a trustee of the American Academy in Rome. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is a Trustee of the Bogliasco Foundation. His music is published exclusively by Associated Music Publishers. A complete works list can be found at WiseMusicClassical.com.
ABOUT MARK HARVEY
Mark Harvey, Senior Lecturer in Music, Ph.D., Boston University, is a trumpeter, composer, arranger, and founder/music director of the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra. Commissions include those from the Meet the Composer/Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Commissioning Program, the Organization of American Kodaly Educators, the 15th Annual John Coltrane Memorial Concert, and the MIT Wind Ensemble. Commissions from the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble have included compositions written for and premiered by Joe Lovano and Steve Turre.
Harvey has appeared with Aardvark and jazz luminaries Geri Allen, Steven Bernstein, Jaki Byard, Jay Clayton, Kenny Dorham, Gil Evans, Jimmy Giuffre, Vinny Golia, Sheila Jordan, Frank London, Howard McGhee, Rajesh Mehta, Claudio Roditi, and Walter Thompson in venues such as Fenway Park, the Berklee Performance Center, the Hatch Shell, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Globe Jazz & Blues Festival, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Symphony Hall with the Boston Pops, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival/New Music Series, the Festival of New Trumpet Music [FONT], the Knitting Factory, Village Gate, and Public Theater (all in NYC), the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Santa Monica, CA, the Baja State Theater, Mexico, and the Berlin Jazz Festival, Germany.
He may be heard on 30 recordings, including 14 CDs of his original compositions and arrangements with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra on the Leo, Leo Lab, Nine Winds, and Aardmuse labels as well as albums with George Russell’s Living Time Orchestra [Blue Note] and Baird Hersey’s Year of the Ear [Arista/Novus]. With small ensembles, he has improvised soundtracks for three DVD collections of historic silent films in the Treasures from American Film Archives series. Harvey has received fellowships from the Whiting Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and awards from ASCAP as well as national and regional cultural organizations. He has published essays and lectures widely on jazz and the relationship of music and religion. His 2015 history, The Boston Creative Jazz Scene 1970 -1983, has received widespread critical acclaim. Active for many years with the Boston jazz and arts community, he was honored for this work by the City Councils of both Boston and Cambridge in January, 2013. In 2015, he was named Boston Jazz Hero by the national Jazz Journalists Association. He serves on the board of JazzBoston.
ABOUT LAURA GRILL JAYE
Laura Grill Jaye is the Director of the MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble. Founded by MacArthur Fellowship and Pulitzer Prize winner John Harbison, the VJE torch was passed to Laura in 2017. Laura loves to work in all stages of music making. She is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, improviser, collaborator, performer, and teacher.
Laura is half of the musical-writing duo “Grill and Chowder” with Shayok Misha Chowdhury. Their work has been seen or developed at Ars Nova, New York Theatre Workshop, SPACE on Ryder Farm, NYMF, HERE Arts Center, and Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre. Their show Artemis in the Parking Lot was awarded “Best of Fest” at NYMF 2016. They are also winners of a 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant from the American Theatre Wing.
Laura’s original music combines her jazz mentality with her affinity for folk and rock storytelling. The Boston Globe said, “It’s jump jazz, it’s barroom rock, it’s chamber folk, and it’s downright infectious.” With the Laura Grill Band, a personal project, she has written and produced two records, Never Before (2011) and Tell All Your Friends (2013).
In 2011, Laura began her teaching career by building the music department at Meridian Academy in Boston from the ground up. The program features many traditional classes such as singing, guitar, songwriting, and music theory. Over time, she has developed less-traditional courses such as “How to Listen to Music” (a music appreciation class) and “Weird Instruments” where students study, design, and build their own instruments.
Laura has always walked through life with arms wide open. This openness to experience has led to an exciting life of performances and collaborations with musical giants. Laura arranged for and performed with Jacob Collier at his 2018 Djesse Vol. 1 World Premiere concert. On her 2018 tour, Audra McDonald performed one of Laura’s arrangements with original lyrics at Boston Symphony Hall and Lincoln Center. Most recently, Laura has worked intimately with Luciana Souza in an educational setting at MIT. Other notable teachers/collaborators include Lawrence Hobgood, Paul Wertico, Dave Holland, Jason Moran, Dominique Eade, and Sara Serpa.
Laura has a B.A. in Jazz Voice and Composition from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and an M.A. in Jazz Studies and Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory.
ABOUT KEALA KAUMEHEIWA
Bassist Keala Kaumeheiwa was born in Oswego, New York and was raised in Marquette, Michigan. He received a Bachelor's of Music Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied both jazz and classical music with renowned bassist Richard Davis. From Wisconsin, Keala moved to New York City, where he performed with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. After moving to the Boston area, Keala studied jazz bass and improvisation with legendary bassist Ron Carter as part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at New England Conservatory. Meanwhile, he continued his classical bass studies with virtuoso bassist Donald Palma. While at the Monk Institute, Keala performed with Jimmy Heath, Jackie McLean, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Watson, Harry "Sweets" Edison, and James Moody. Since 2001, Keala has been an Affiliated Artist at MIT, teaching Jazz Combo Ensembles. He has performed throughout Italy, at the Havana Jazz Festival as well as freelancing around Boston, frequently performing at Sculler's Jazz Club, Ryles, Wally's Jazz Cafe and the Regattabar.
ABOUT THE MIT FESTIVAL JAZZ ENSEMBLE
The MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble (MIT FJE) was founded in 1963 by Boston jazz icon Herb Pomeroy and led since 1999 by Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. This advanced 18 to 20-member big band/jazz ensemble is comprised of outstanding MIT undergraduate and graduate students studying a wide range of disciplines. An advanced combo is formed from the membership of the MIT FJE. MIT FJE performs traditional and contemporary jazz ensemble literature, including student compositions and new works written for the MIT FJE by major jazz composers. Improvisation is a prominent part of the MIT FJE experience. MIT FJE has released five professional recordings including its major jazz label debut on Sunnyside in 2015, Infinite Winds, which received a five-star review from DownBeat and was chosen by the magazine as one of its “Best Albums of 2015 Five-Star Masterpieces.”
The FJE has a long history of performing original music by MIT students and composers from around the world. Since 2001, it has presented over 50 world premieres. Among others, Mark Harvey, Herb Pomeroy, Jamshied Sharifi, Ran Blake, John Harbison, Chick Corea, Joe Lovano, Gunther and George Schuller, Kenny Werner, Don Byron, Steve Turre, Magali Souriau, Guillermo Klein, Chris Cheek, Miguel Zenón, Dominique Eade, and Luciana Souza have collaborated with the MIT FJE. In January of 2019 the FJE participated in a highly successful cultural exchange, touring Puerto Rico with Miguel Zenón, presenting concerts in various venues and STEM workshops in middle and high schools.
In March of 2023 the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, along with the MIT Wind Ensemble and MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, toured and performed in the Brazilian Amazon. The project was focused on cultural and environmental sustainability and music’s power as a vehicle for change.
ABOUT THE MUSIC DIRECTOR
Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. is the Director of Wind and Jazz Ensembles at MIT, where he serves at Music Director of the MIT Wind Ensemble, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, and oversees jazz chamber music programs including three combos, MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and the Emerson Jazz Scholars Program.
He and the MIT Wind Ensemble have been featured on PBS in the 2014 Emmy-winning documentary Awakening: Evoking the Arab Spring through Music, with music by Jamshied Sharifi. Harris and his students also are featured in the 2018 Emmy-winning documentary Imagination Off The Charts: Jacob Collier Comes to MIT.
He is a strong advocate for the creation and performance of new music, having commissioned and/or premiered 95 works for wind, jazz, and mixed ensembles, recently leading pieces by Jamshied Sharifi, Chick Corea, Don Byron, Jacob Collier, and Miguel Zenón. He has also been highly active with public school students and music educators throughout his career. Harris is the author of Conducting with Feeling and Seeking the Infinite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski, and is currently writing a biography of Herb Pomeroy. He has performed as a drummer with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, John Harbison, the Boston Pops, and Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist Joe Lovano.
Nominated by his students, Harris is a 2013 and 2019 recipient of the James A. and Ruth Levitan Award for Excellence in Teaching in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT.
ABOUT MIT VOCAL JAZZ ENSEMBLE
The MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble (VJE) was founded by Institute Professor John Harbison in the spring of 2011 as the first and only vocal jazz performance group at the Institute. Boston-based vocalist-arranger-composer Laura Grill Jaye is the current director and coach of VJE, which has quickly risen to high recognition not only on campus but throughout Boston. Performance opportunities have included a professional recording with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble of the MIT school song and “A Rhumba for Rafael Reif,” as well as an appearance with the Boston Pops at Boston’s Symphony Hall. Professor Harbison has arranged many pieces for VJE over the years.
VJE’s debut recording Vocal Jazz at MIT: Store-Bought Hair, was released in 2015. Past collaborations have included performances with Jacob Collier, Dominique Eade, and Luciana Souza. Under the direction of Laura Grill Jaye, VJE has participated and earned high praise in a special residency with Audra McDonald, and has collaborated and recorded with The MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble.
VJE sings ensemble and solo jazz music. It performs with jazz instrumentalists on and off campus, including a concert in Killian Hall at the end of each semester. The ensemble also offers members opportunities for arranging and songwriting. The MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble is coordinated and overseen by Dr. Fred Harris.
LIVE STREAM LINK: https://mta.mit.edu/viewlisten/live-kresge-auditorium