Kaufman Center Press Releases
Lucy Moses School presents A Jazz Program Celebration 15th Anniversary Concert (January 11, 2009)
Lucy Moses School (LMS) will mark the 15th anniversary of its celebrated Jazz Program with a free concert featuring adult students and faculty in Merkin Concert Hall on Saturday, January 11, 2009. Students from the Sunday and Monday Jazz Ensembles and Advanced Jazz Improvisation and Harmony class will perform arrangements of great jazz pieces by program director Roni Ben-Hur as well as American Songbook standards. The concert will be followed by a reception.
Directed by the celebrated jazz guitarist Roni Ben-Hur, LMS’s unique Jazz Program is designed for singers and instrumentalists of all backgrounds and skill levels, from beginners to advanced students. Adult students can participate in ensemble classes as well as private instruction with faculty members who are some of the top jazz musicians in New York City.
Established by Ben-Hur in 1994, the Jazz Program began with one class and has grown to serve more than 100 students each year with classes including jazz guitar and harmony, piano workshops, improvisation, vocal workshops and jazz appreciation as well as jazz ensembles in which intermediate and advanced instrumentalists and vocalists play arrangements as part of a group and receive coaching. LMS’s Jazz Program is unique in that it is very welcoming to students with full-time professions who are not professional musicians, allowing them to participate in a rigorous, exciting program that is geared to them. Many students keep coming back year after year, citing the great teachers and stimulating classes that continue to challenge them.
“Roni’s taken a troop of avid amateurs and molded us into a tight band,” says David Klafter, a longtime student and an organizer of the January 11 concert. “He fosters our musicianship and teaches us to listen to each other and draw ideas from what others are playing. And we always swing!”
The January 11 concert features: Sunday Jazz Ensemble students Amy Begel, piano; Jonathan T. Landsberg, sax; Donald Miller, sax; Ted Sannella, vocals; Erik Swimmer, sax and Pete Walshak, guitar. Monday Jazz Ensemble students Jennifer Ehrenberg, sax; Cascadu, vocal; Sharon Fischman, drums; David Klafter, piano; Jorge Manahan, guitar; Sana Manjeshwar, vocals; Jose Morales, trumpet; Keith Mulhare, bass; Heidi Rogers, piano; Ron S. Tikofsky, sax and Joseph Zemann, sax. Advanced Jazz Improvisation and Harmony students Jennifer Collins, sax; Jose Morales, trumpet; David Perlman, piano and Mercer L. Sullivan, guitar; Sam Torres, sax and Joseph Zemann, sax. With guest performers Larry Eckert, sax; Alex Gressel, bass and Steve Williams, drums.
Jazzed Magazine calls LMS Jazz Program director Ben-Hur “a powerful force in the jazz scene…widely recognized as one of the most significant guitarists, bandleaders, and educators of his time.” He was also director of music programs at Landmark and the Coalition for Social Change alternative high schools, a founder and former director of the LMS PPAS Jazz Program and a former faculty member at Jazz Mobile, The New School, New York University, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, Manna House workshops and nationwide college workshops. A winner of the JAZZIZ Reader’s Poll for “Best New Talent” in 2000, Ben-Hur has performed with the likes of Jimmy Heath, Etta Jones, John Hicks, Barry Harris, Walter Booker, and Earl May among many others. His recordings—Smile (Motema), Keepin’ It Open (Motema), Signature (Reservoir), Anna’s Dance (Reservoir), Sofia’s Butterfly (TCB) and Backyard (TCB) have earned enthusiastic praise from fans and critics alike. For more information, please visit http://www.ronibenhur.com, http://www.myspace.com/ronibenhur, or http://www.sonicbids.com/ronibenhur.
LMS Jazz Program instructor and veteran of the New York jazz scene Amy London is considered by music business insiders and local jazz fans as a first-call vocalist in a variety of settings—jazz club, studio, on stage with big bands and on Broadway. "Amy London is a world-class singer possessing a beautiful and expressive vocal instrument, and always musical," says internationally renowned pianist Fred Hersch. A premier vocal coach as well as a performer, London is one of the founders of the popular vocal department at the New School University BFA Jazz Program in NYC. Her newest release as a leader is When I Look In Your Eyes. Visit amylondonsings.com for more information.
LMS Jazz Piano and Jazz Appreciation instructor Tardo Hammer is also on the faculty at The New School and conducts classes and lessons at clinics and colleges worldwide.
Look Stop and Listen, his album of Tadd Dameron compositions, was named one of the top CDs of 2007 by Downbeat, The Village Voice, and All About Jazz. Hammer performs with his trio, as well as serving as accompanist and sideman to other featured performers, including Annie Ross, Charles Davis, Warren Vache and Grant Stewart.
For more information, please visit http://home.earthlink.net/~tardo/biography.html.
For more information about the Jazz Program and Kaufman Center’s Lucy Moses School, please visit lucymosesschool.org, call 212 501 3360 or email .
Listings Information:
Lucy Moses School at Kaufman Center
A Jazz Program Celebration
15th Anniversary Concert
Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 3:00pm
129 West 67th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam)
Admission is FREE.
About Merkin Concert Hall
Renowned for its acoustics, accessibility and innovative programming, Merkin Concert Hall is the recipient of multiple awards for adventurous programming, most recently from ASCAP/Chamber Music America in 2002–03. The hall is a division of Kaufman Center, which also includes Lucy Moses School (a community arts school) and Special Music School (a New York City public school for musically gifted children). A not-for-profit organization founded in 1952, Kaufman Center occupies its own facility, the award-winning Goodman House, located in Manhattan’s Lincoln Square arts district. Kaufman Center is an unsurpassed cultural resource where people of all ages can experience the joy of artistic creation, expression and appreciation.