Longy’s performance are free and open to the public, but please register in advance.
Star Crossed Constellations: The Music of Duke Ellington, Leonard Bernstein and Mary Lou Williams
The project and course title was inspired by video footage of Leonard Bernstein rehearsing The Rite of Spring in 1987 where he instructs the timpanist to play his part like “prehistoric jazz.” Originally a quintet project led by Eric Hofbauer, it resulted in four albums of quintet arrangements that celebrate the common ground between modern jazz and the works of Stravinsky, Messiaen, Ives, and Ellington by using the shared rhythmic and harmonic concepts of the 20th century modernists as a bridge to postmodern jazz improvisation. This method of synthesis and reinterpretation has been a part of the jazz tradition from its inception through the work of Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and even Gunther Schuller’s Third Stream movement. This method of deconstruction and re-imaging scores as vehicles for improvisation became the central concept for this project based collaborative course. The class first analyzes and experiments with various transformational techniques and then works together to craft brand new arrangements specific to the class instrumentation.
This year the class tackled the work of Ellington, from his Such Sweet Thunder suite (inspired by the texts of Shakespeare); Bernstein, from West Side Story (fitting during the year of the film Maestro); and the Zodiac Suite by Mary Lou Williams (with each student small group creating miniatures based on themes from their own zodiac signs.)
Jazz and Contemporary Music
