UA’s School of Music Announces 2004-05 Celebrity Series Schedule

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama’s School of Music is proud to announce its Celebrity Series concert schedule for 2004-05. This season’s four offerings are: Take 6; Gil Shaham, violin and Orli Shaham, piano; Frank Moody Memorial Concert with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra; and the Billy Taylor Jazz Trio. This year’s concerts offer a variety of styles. All four performances are sponsored by the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation.

All performances are held in the Concert Hall of the Moody Music Building on the UA campus. Celebrity Series subscriptions are $72 for main floor and first balcony and $55 for second balcony and main floor Rows A and B. Single ticket prices are $22 and $15 for general audiences and $7 for students with valid IDs. For ticket information, or an immediate credit card purchase, call the School of Music Box Office at 205/348-7111.

About the Gloria Narramore Moody Foundation: The Moody Foundation was founded in 1990 by Gloria Moody and her husband, the late Tuscaloosa businessman Frank McCorkle Moody, to support the arts and music. In addition to bringing world-class performers to Alabama, the Moody Foundation has endowed scholarships at UA and has supported arts organizations elsewhere in the United States.

This is the 16th year the Moody Foundation has brought internationally acclaimed talent to Alabama and underwritten the performances of world-class performers such as the Guarneri String Quartet, pianist Awadagin Pratt, soprano Benita Valente of the New York Metropolitan Opera, violinist Itzhak Perlman, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma with pianist Emanuel Ax in a joint recital at The University of Alabama.

The School of Music is a department of the College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest public liberal arts college in the state, with approximately 5,500 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students.

The College has received national recognition for academic excellence, and the College’s students have been selected for many of the nation’s top academic honors, including 13 Rhodes Scholarships, 15 Goldwater Scholarships, seven Truman Scholarships, one Udall Scholarship and 16 memberships on USA Today’s Academic All-American teams.

This year’s Celebrity Series performances will include:

Take 6

Friday, Sept. 10, 2004
7:30 p.m.

This award-winning Christian sextet broke new ground in a cappella in the 1980s, paving the way for the popular revival of R&B vocal groups. Their jazz harmonies, original songs and vocal pyrotechnics represent some of the best a cappella ever recorded.

Take 6 evolved from a modest start in 1980 as an a cappella gospel group, and is characterized by boldness in their music and inventiveness. Their singing has had a profound influence on modern pop music. They embrace constant change in expression and performance, and their music is a gospel, jazz and R&B-inflected statement of faith. The one constant for Take 6 is their spiritual foundations and their richly-layered and uniquely-fashioned harmonies.

The group has won seven Grammy’s, five Doves (Gospel Music Awards), Best Jazz Vocal Group honors for four consecutive years in Downbeat’s prestigious Reader’s and Critic’s Poll, a Soul Train Music Award, and BRE (Black Radio Exclusive) Vocal Group of the Year, amid countless other musical and humanitarian citations.

Gil Shaham, violin
Orli Shaham, piano
Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004
7:30 p.m.

This talented brother and sister have made extended duo-recital tours of Europe and North America. Gil Shaham and Orli Shaham also released a recording of “Dvorak for Two” on the Deutsche Grammophon label in 1997.

Violinist Gil is internationally recognized by audiences and many noted critics as one of today’s most virtuosic and engaging classical artists. He is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with celebrated orchestras as well as for recital and ensemble appearances on the great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

Gil won a Grammy Award for his 1998 recital album “American Scenes” with André Previn at the piano. His most recent release is “The Fauré Album” on Artemis Classics, featuring the first violin sonata and several shorter works.

He was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius.

Pianist Orli has established an impressive international reputation as one of today’s most gifted young pianists. Her recent seasons have included successful debuts with the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, which resulted in re-engagements.

Orli has had numerous acclaimed recitals, including appearances in New York and Washington, D.C.; and she recently embarked on an American tour as soloist with the Jerusalem Symphony.

She has been recognized as an exceptional artist since the age of 5, when she was awarded her first scholarship for musical study from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. At age 7, she came to New York with her family and began to study with Nancy Stessin. One year later, she was accepted at The Juilliard School.

Frank Moody Memorial Concert
Alabama Symphony Orchestra

Alistair Willis, conductor
William Wolfram, piano
Sunday, Feb. 20, 2005
3:00 p.m.

As part of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s program for the Frank Moody Memorial Concert, William Wolfram will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 under the baton of Alastair Willis.

American pianist Wolfram was winner of the Silver Medal in both the William Kapell and the Naumberg international piano competitions. He is a versatile recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician who has garnered the respect of musicians and the acclaim of critics across the country.

He has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, the National Symphony and the Florida Orchestra to name just a few; and he enjoys regular and ongoing close associations with the Dallas Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra.

Wolfram is a graduate of The Juilliard School and lives in New York City.

Willis most recently led the Seattle Symphony as assistant conductor, a position he held from Sept. 2000 to July 2003. He previously held the position of assistant conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras and music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.

In May 2002, world famous cellist Yo Yo Ma personally asked Willis to be the conductor for several performances of his Silk Road Project residency, presented by the Seattle Symphony, and has re-invited Maestro Willis to work with him again at the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

Billy Taylor Jazz Trio
Saturday, April 9, 2005
7:30 p.m.

Vigorously dedicated to nurturing jazz and creating new forums and opportunities for the artists who perform it, Billy Taylor is an American radio and television icon who composes jazz and also performs it, appearing with such jazz greats as Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.

As the music director of the first-ever television series about jazz, entitled “The Subject is Jazz,” in 1958, the host of daily radio shows featuring jazz artists in the 1960s, the musical director of “The David Frost Show” in the 1970s, arts correspondent for “CBS Sunday Morning” from the early 1980s to present and as an accomplished pianist, Taylor has helped to bring jazz, and the musicians who perform it, recognition and critical acclaim.