Flynn Center for the Performing Arts :: 2007/2008 Season

Jazz Improv for Beginners (Ages 10-12)
Would you like to be a part of your school jazz band or eventually play in a small jazz combo? Jump-start your improvisational skills in this wonderful camp, complete with percussion and improvisation workshops, and a special guest session with world-renowned Latin jazz trumpeter Ray Vega!
July 28-August 1 • 10 am-12 pm • Tony Pietricola & Ray Vega • Hoehl Studio Lab • $125 (includes performance ticket) • Limit: 20 • Recommended for students who have played their instrument for a minimum of one year.

Afternoon Workshops: Choose from Latin Jazz or Hand Percussion (Age 13+)
The Summertime Jazz workshops are designed to inspire and energize young instrumentalists and dancers to reach new heights of creativity and cooperative musicianship and performance. These intensive experiences immerse students in the world of Latin jazz, providing rich opportunities to hone individual skills and master the team effort of performing.

In the MUSIC TRACK, students take clinics specific to their instruments where they learn to apply the principles and nuances of improvisation, investigate chord structure, and acquire melodic creativity. Led by world-renowned Latin jazz trumpeter, our special guest, Ray Vega, UVM faculty and Camp director Alex Stewart, and members of Rick Davies’ Latin ensemble-in-residence Jazzismo. Come join the jam!

The HAND PERCUSSION TRACK uncovers the fiery rhythms of Latin jazz. Learn the rhythmic language of beats from Cuba and the larger African Diaspora on congas, clave, timbales, and other instruments. This track is for those with little or no previous experience as instrumentalists (skilled percussionists should take the music track).

Students in the music tracks also receive instruction in Latin jazz hand percussion.

Morning Academic Class: Latin Jazz Cultural Immersion (age 14+)
This UVM course examines Latin Jazz from its creation by Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Latino musicians—as well as New York City Anglo instrumentalists during the 1940s. Focusing on historical and cultural tradition through lectures, readings, listening, and videos, students follow the continued development of Latin Jazz through its current form and expression.
July 28-August 1 • 8:45-11:45 am • Alex Stewart • FlynnSpace • $189 (non-credit) • Limit: 15

RAY VEGA, our special guest artist/educator, is a trumpeter who has established himself as one of the innovators of the new generation of Latin jazz players with his own fiery brand of real New York Latin jazz. He is a veteran of salsa and Latin jazz bands of Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, and Hector LaVoe, among others, and has created numerous recordings. His band, the Ray Vega Latin Jazz Sextet, performs extensively. Vega is a professor at the State University of New York at Purchase.

ALEX STEWART, afternoon camp director and academic class instructor, is a professor of music at UVM. He earned an M.A. in music from Manhattan School of Music and a Ph.D. from the City University of New York and has toured, performed, and recorded with Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, Manhattan Transfer, Ray Charles, Wynton Marsalis, and many others.

RICK DAVIES is the founder and director of Jazzismo, the Summertime Jazz ensemble-in-residence based in New York that has featured bassist Harvie Swartz, trumpeters Chocolate Armenteros and Ray Vega, and many of the finest salsa and Latin musicians. As well as being a talented trombonist, Davies is a music professor & department chair at SUNY Plattsburgh. He earned his Ph.D. in jazz history from New York University.

TOM CLEARY was a finalist in the competitive Kennedy Center Jazz ambassadors program and has studied jazz at Hampshire College, UMass, and UVM before becoming an accomplished educator and jazz pianist. He has taught students ranging from elementary to college level in schools and music programs in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Vermont.

CALVIN CROSBY is a graduate of the FlynnArts Jazz Program and now a freelance bassist. He recently completed a B.A. at the Manhattan School of Music and has studied and/or performed with James Harvey, Jennifer Hartswick, Dave Grippo, Rufus Reid, Harvie Swartz, Jay Anderson, Barry Harris, David Baker, James Moody, Jason Moran, and other artists.

STEVE FERRARIS, drummer and arts educator, has performed and taught rhythm and drumming for all ages nationally and internationally since 1985. He has been involved with the New Hampshire Council on the Arts, Very Special Arts New Hampshire, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, and UVM, among other institutions.

TONY PIETRICOLA, director of the beginners’ camp and music teacher at Charlotte Central School, was voted the 2003 Vermont Music Educator of the Year. He has worked as a consultant to the Vermont Department of Education and is a member of the Vermont Jazz Ensemble.

JEFF SALISBURY, drummer, has played for Albert King and Cold Blood, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Linda Tillery, and many other artists in rhythm-and-blues and jazz. A former artistic advisor for the Discover Jazz Festival, Salisbury was commissioned by the Flynn to compose and perform original percussion quartet music in 2003.