At 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater, jazz legend Wynton Marsalis will give the opening morning lecture of the Week Nine theme: “Rising Together: Our Century of Creativity and Collaboration with Wynton Marsalis and the JLCO.”
Marsalis serves as managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and is an internationally-acclaimed musician, composer and music educator. In addition to his role at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis is the director of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School and he is president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. To open the week, Marsalis will talk about his work with Jazz at Lincoln Center and his creative pursuits as an artist and as a music educator.
Deborah Sunya Moore, senior vice president and chief program officer at Chautauqua Institution, said Marsalis has been a constant collaborator and supporter of the Institution in recent years, and he will be returning for his third curated week. This week will explore some of the themes found in Marsalis’ musical composition “All Rise,” which will be performed Wednesday and Thursday evenings in the Amp.
“ ‘Rising Together’ is focused on themes that are relevant both for Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Institution as organizations that are both legacy and forward looking,” Moore said. “Some of the themes we’ll be focusing on are found in ‘All Rise,’ and those are themes such as diversity and unity, community and connection, resilience and hope, and as we finish our last week of the 150th season. As we celebrate our 150th and this work composed by Wynton Marsalis, ‘All Rise,’ comes to its 25th anniversary, those are some of the themes that we’re focusing on moving forward.”
As Chautauquans depart from the Institution and move back out into the wider world when the season ends, Moore said she hopes they will take with them some of the feelings of connection, hope, resilience and empathy that will be reflected on this week.
According to his biography, Marsalis’ core beliefs are founded in fundamentals of jazz including “freedom and individual creativity (improvisation), collective action and good manners (swing), as well as acceptance, gratitude and resilience (the blues).”
In addition to today’s morning lecture, Marsalis’ “All Rise” will be performed both Tuesday and Wednesday evenings as a collaboration between Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the Music School Festival Orchestra and Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus under the baton of artistic director of the School of Music and conductor of the Music School Festival Orchestra Timothy Muffitt. The performances will be held as part of an ongoing documentary collaboration with the Institution and PBS.
