BARD MUSIC PROGRAM PRESENTS AN EVENING OF CLASSICAL MUSIC AND JAZZ ON OCTOBER 19 Free program features the Bard Orchestra and the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Bard Music Program presents a classical/jazz concert on Wednesday, October 19. Free and open to the public, the program will begin at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. The classical section of the program features the Bard Orchestra, directed by Mark Mandarano, performing Mozart’s overture to The Impresario and Fauré’s Masques et Bergamasques. The orchestra was founded seven years ago by Joan Tower. She passed the baton to James Bagwell, who has now passed it to Mandarano. In addition to his work with the Bard Orchestra, Mandarano is the principal guest conductor of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and has just completed a four-year tenure with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in Orange County, California, first as assistant and then as associate conductor. From 1994 to 1999 he served as resident conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. A performance by the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet is the highlight of the jazz component of the program. The quartet features Lindsay on sax, Jonathan Blake on drums, Tonooka on piano, and Rufus Reid on bass. Reid is the recipient of the Mellon Jazz 2005 Living Legacy Award, to be awarded October 21 at the Kennedy Center. For further information, call the Music Program at 845-758-7250. # ABOUT THE MEMBERS OF THE ERICA LINDSAY/SUMI TONOOKA QUARTET: Drummer Jonathan Blake received a bachelor of music degree from William Patterson University. He has performed with the Mingus Big Band, Oliver Lake, David Sanchez, John Scofield, Terrell Stafford, and Stanley Turrentine, among others. He has appeared at Lincoln Center, Birdland, the Knitting Factory, and the Apollo Theater. Erica Lindsay has performed and toured with leaders such as Melba Liston, Clifford Jordan, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, George Gruntz, Sumi Tonooka, Pheeraon akLaff. Lindsay has been active composing for theater, television, and dance, as well as performing with poets and performance artists Carl Hancock-Rux, Janice King, Janine Vega, Mikhail Horowitz, and Nancy Ostrovsky. She is featured in Burrill Crohn’s film documentary, Women in Jazz, and in Sally Placksin’s book American Women in Jazz. Her quintet can be heard on the Candid Records release Erica Lindsay—Dreamer, which the Penguin Book of Jazz Recordings has called “tremendously impressive” and “a record that shouldn’t be missed.” Lindsay has been working most recently with Oliver Lake, Baikida Carroll, Howard Johnson, Jeff Siegel, Thurman Barker, and the San Francisco–based group Trace Elements. Four CDs are soon to be released that feature Lindsay: Yes/Live at the Rosendale Café (Erica Lindsay Quartet); a duo collaboration with Ricky Carter titled Soulcatcher; a Trace Elements CD titled Live at Bruno’s; and the first CD from the Erica Lindsay/Sumi Tonooka Quartet titled, Initiation. Bassist Rufus Reid’s professional career began in Seattle, continued in Chicago, and now finds him in New York, where he has performed, traveled, and recorded with many of the jazz masters, including Eddie Harris, Dexter Gordon, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, J.J. Johnson, and Art Farmer. He continues to perform with such artists as Benny Golson, Kenny Burrell, Lee Konitz, James Moody, Bob Mintzer, and Kenny Barron, to name a few. Reid has performed and recorded Honey and Rue with Kathleen Battle and the St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, and pianist and composer André Previn. Reid joined with drummer Akira Tana in 1990 to form the quintet TanaReid. For 10 years they traveled, performed, and taught around the world. They recorded five CDs during their time together: Yours and Mine, and Passing Thoughts for Concord Records; and Blue Motion, Looking Forward, and Back To Front on Evidence Records. In January 1997, the International Association of Jazz Educators gave Reid its Humanitarian Award. Down Beat magazine presented him the 1998 Achievement Award for Jazz Education. He won the first annual BMI Foundation/Charlie Parker Jazz Composition award in 2000. In 2001 he was presented with the Distinguished Achievement Award by the International Society of Bassists. Reid received an associate arts degree from Olympic College in 1969, and continued his education at Northwestern University, receiving a bachelor of music degree as a performance major on the double bass. He has studied with James Harnett of the Seattle Symphony, Warren Benfield, and Joe Guastefeste of the Chicago Symphony. He taught at William Paterson University for 20 years and was director of the Jazz Studies and Performance Program. He has published two bass method books: The Evolving Bassist and Evolving Upward. Noted jazz critic Francis Davis placed Sumi Tonooka “among the best of today’s young pianists.” During a career now spanning more than 20 years, Tonooka has been surprising and delighting audiences and quietly piling up accolades from jazz writers and her fellow musicians. Working in trio or quartet with such noted jazz stalwarts as bassist Rufus Reid and drummers Akira Tana and Lewis Nash, Tonooka characteristically blends her own compositions with highly personal readings of jazz standards. Her first professional stint at age 18 was with the Philly Joe Jones quartet, Le Grand Prix. From there she went on to perform with such luminaries as Kenny Burrell, Little Jimmy Scott, Sonny Fortune, Red Rodney, Benny Golson, and David “Fathead” Newman. Tonooka holds a bachelor of music degree from Philadelphia College of Performing Arts. She studied piano with Bernard Peiffer, Susan Starr, Mary Lou Williams, and Stanley Cowell, receiving additional training in piano and composition from Madame Margaret Chaloff of the New England Conservatory of Music. In addition to her jazz recording and performing, she has composed for film and dance. # # # (9/27/05)

This event was last updated on 10-20-2005

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