Jazzin’ with the Classics for Christmas

Wednesday, December 28, 3 p.m., Emmanuel Episcopal Parish

— from Jeffrey Cohan —

Music at Emmanuel presents the tenth annual Yuletide Baroque: Jazzin’ with the Classics for Christmas, featuring soprano Linda Tsatsanis, jazz flutist, pianist and clarinetist Martin Lund, classical flutist Jeffrey Cohan and special guest, virtuoso vibraphone player Tom Collier on Wednesday afternoon, December 28, 2016 at 3:00 PM at Emmanuel Episcopal Parish in Eastsound on Orcas Island.

Admission will be by free will offering, with a suggest donation of $10. 18 and under free. Please call (360) 376-2352 for more information.

In this program, four renowned classical and jazz artists and friends meld their musical perspectives in an unusual collaboration and unique celebration of the Yuletide season that is guaranteed to generate an abundance of Christmas cheer. Tsatsanis, Lund, Cohan and Collier will team up to bridge contemporary improvisational jazz and the “art music” of baroque and renaissance times. Instrumental musicians have “jazzed up” melodies familiar to them in the style of their day for centuries, and this team’s virtuoso improvisations on Yuletide favorites, and their renditions of classical standards such as arias from Handel’s Messiah will bring together the best of jazz and classical worlds.

About the Artists
LINDA TSATSANIS
Hailed as “ravishing” (New York Times) and possessing “sheer vocal proficiency, a bright, flexible voice, big but controlled, shaded with plentiful color” (Boston Globe), Canadian soprano Linda Tsatsanis enjoys an active and diverse career. Ms. Tsatsanis’ versatile voice makes her equally comfortable on the opera stage and concert hall while being able to sing intimate renaissance song or world premier performances such as a stunning arrangement made for her, cello and string orchestra of the Preludes of Bach’s Cello Suites. Ms. Tsatsanis has appeared as soloist with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Auburn Symphony, Pacific Musicworks, Orchestra Seattle, Helios Opera, Pacific Baroque Orchestra and has recently been presented by the Early Music Society of the Islands (Victoria, BC), Indianapolis Early Music Festival, San Francisco Early Music Society, and Magnolia Baroque Festival. Ms. Tsatsanis holds degrees from the University of Toronto and Indiana University. She has a solo album with Origin Classical, And I Remain: Three Love Stories, described as a “seductive recital of the darker sides of 17th-century love” (Gramophone), and can also be heard on recordings by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Naxos. Currently Ms. Tsatsanis lives in Seattle, Washington.

MARTIN LUND
Martin Lund, one of the most diverse musicians in the universe, has played with some of the great blues artists of our time and worked in the studios of LA as a composer, arranger and musician with artists like Mel Torme to Isacc Hayes. His eclectic background has allowed him to move freely through any style of music from classical to rock and from jazz to Broadway. He is equally adept at clarinet, saxophone, flute and piano. Martin is a well-known performer and teacher who produces one of Orcas Island’s most popular summer music events, The One World Music Festival, a jazz-based musical variety show with Orcas Island’s best musicians and top-notch talent from beyond the islands. Martin graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in both music and music education.

TOM COLLIER
Director of percussion studies at the University of Washington School of Music since 1980, Tom Collier is a veteran of more than 50 years in music — his first public appearance was at age five, on xylophone, and his first professional performances were made as a nine-year-old marimba virtuoso. Tom has since performed and recorded with his own jazz group and many important classical, jazz, and popular artists, including Bill Frisell, Frank Zappa, Shelly Manne, Laurindo Almeida, Natalie Cole, Mannheim Steamroller, Sammy Davis, Jr., Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Olivia Newton-John, The Beach Boys, and too many more to name. In the classical arena, Collier has appeared as guest soloist with the Seattle Symphony and many other orchestras, and as percussionist with the Los Angeles Repertoire Orchestra, L.A. Contempo Four and the Northwest Chamber Orchestra. He has presented over 300 jazz concerts in public schools around Washington State for the Arts In Education Program under the auspices of that state’s Arts Commission. Collier has released several albums as leader or co-leader beginning with Inner City Records in 1981 and continuing through the present. In 2014, he was awarded a Royalty Research Grant by the University to produce three new recordings in three different settings. In addition, he has recorded several educational albums for Music Minus One and Studio 4 Music. In 1980, Collier was presented with an “Outstanding Service To Jazz Education” award by the National Association of Jazz Educators, and over the past thirty years, he has won twenty five ASCAP Popular Panel and ASCAPlus Awards for his various jazz and percussion compositions. In 2011, the prestigious Adelaide D. Currie Cole Endowed Professorship in the University of Washington School of Music was awarded to Professor Collier for the academic years 2011-2013.

JEFFREY COHAN
Flutist Jeffrey Cohan has performed as soloist in 25 countries, both on modern and early transverse flutes from the Renaissance through the present. The winner of many important competitions and awards, he has performed throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and worldwide for the USIA Arts America Program. Many works have been written for and premiered by him, including five new flute concerti since 2000. He is artistic director of the Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival in Washington, DC, the Black Hawk Chamber Music Festival in the Midwest and the Salish Sea Early Music Festival in the Pacific Northwest. He can “play many superstar flutists one might name under the table” according to the New York Times and is “The Flute Master” (headline) according to the Boston Globe.

WHAT: Jazzin’ with the Classics for Christmas
WHEN: Wednesday afternoon, December 28, 2016 at 3:00 PM
WHERE: Emmanuel Episcopal Parish in Eastsound
MORE INFO: (360) 376-2352 (Emmanuel) or see www.candlelightseattle.org
ADMISSION: suggested donation: $10; 18 & under free