ISU Jazz Bands to sizzle Nov. 10 at the Stephens Center

The Idaho State University Jazz Bands fall concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 10 in the Joseph C. and Cheryl H. Jensen Grand Concert Hall in the L.E. and Thelma E. Stephens Performing Arts Center.

The concert will feature ISU Jazz Band I and Jazz Band II, under the direction of Aric Schneller, visiting instructor of music.

The University’s two jazz bands will perform a varied program of big band repertoire from the libraries of Sammy Nestico, Duke Ellington, Hank Levy, Bob Brookmeyer, Cole Porter, Matt Harris, Bill Holeman, and Lennie Niehaus amongst others.

Also featured are two guest vocalists, Malinda Phillips and Joyce Brien, both sopranos and students of Dr. Diana Livingston Friedley, ISU assistant professor of music.

A native of Missoula, Mont., Schneller is working as the sabbatical replacement for Dr. Patrick Brooks, ISU director of Bands.  Schneller is a former member of the Grammy-Nominated University of North Texas One O’Clock Lab Band, directed by Neil Slater as well as a Down Beat Magazine award-winning jazz trombone soloist and arranger with the UNT 2 O’Clock Lab Band.

Before coming to ISU, Schneller was a jazz trombone finalist with the West Point Academy’s Jazz Knights Premier Jazz Band, at their most recent auditions in June.  As a jazz arranger, Schneller’s big band arrangement of the famous standard, “Invitation” will now reach the international jazz scene with New York’s up and coming Swiss jazz trombonist Samuel Blaser. Blaser will perform Schneller’s arrangement of “Invitation” on Nov. 5 and 6 with the HGM Jazz Orchestra at the Zagreb Festival in Zagreb, Croatia. The performances will be broadcast on Croatian and Austrian radio and television.

Tickets at the Stephens Center Box Office are $5 for general admission, $3 for ISU faculty and staff, $2 for precollege students, and free for ISU students with valid Bengal cards. Box Office hours 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays, Tickets can be purchased in person or by calling 282-3595.

For more information on the jazz concert and other ISU Department of Music events, call 282-3636.