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Wynton Marsalis is the most
accomplished and acclaimed jazz artist and composer of his generation, in
addition to being a distinguished classical musician. Mr. Marsalis has
helped propel jazz to the forefront of American culture through his
brilliant performances, recordings, compositions, educational efforts, and
his vision as Artistic Director of the world-renowned arts organization Jazz
at Lincoln Center (J@LC).
Mr. Marsalis’s prominent position in the performing arts was secured in
April 1997, when he became the first jazz artist to be awarded the
prestigious Pulitzer Prize in music for his work Blood on the Fields,
commissioned by J@LC.
Born near New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1961, Mr. Marsalis began
his classical training on trumpet at age 12 and gained experience as a young
musician in local marching bands, jazz and funk bands, and classical youth
orchestras. He entered The Juilliard School in 1979 when he was 17 years old
and soon became recognized as the most impressive trumpeter at the
prestigious conservatory. That year he also joined Art Blakey and the Jazz
Messengers, the acclaimed band in which generations of emerging jazz artists
honed their craft. Mr. Marsalis made his recording debut as a leader in 1982
and over the last two decades he has produced an incomparable catalogue of
close to 40 outstanding jazz and classical recordings for Columbia Jazz and
Sony Classical, which have won him nine Grammy Awards. In 1983 he became the
first and only artist to win both classical and jazz Grammy Awards in one
year and, remarkably, repeated this feat in 1984. In 1999, he released 8 new
recordings in his unprecedented “Swinging into the 21st” series, which
included a seven-CD boxed set of live performances from the Village
Vanguard.
Mr. Marsalis is the Music Director of the world-renowned Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra (LCJO), which spends over half the year on tour. Mr. Marsalis also
devotes a significant amount of time to composing new works, many of which
are commissioned from and premiered by J@LC. Mr. Marsalis’s rich body of
work includes Them Twos, from the second collaboration between J@LC
and the New York City Ballet in 1999; Big Train, commissioned and
premiered in 1998 by J@LC; Sweet Release, a score for ballet
written in 1996 for the LCJO and choreographed by Judith Jamison for the
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; At the Octoroon Balls, a 1995
piece performed by the Orion String Quartet with The Chamber Music Society
of Lincoln Center; Jazz: Six Syncopated Movements, from the 1993
J@LC collaboration with the New York City Ballet; Jump Start, a
score written for the noted dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp; Citi
Movement/Griot New York, a three-movement composition scored for jazz
septet created in collaboration with choreographer Garth Fagan; and In
This House, On This Morning, an extended piece based on the form of a
traditional gospel service, commissioned and premiered by J@LC in 1992. His
latest work, All Rise, is an evening-length twelve-part composition
that was commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic with the
LCJO and the Morgan State University Choir in December 1999, and released on
CD in September 2002.
Mr. Marsalis is internationally respected as a teacher and spokesman for
music education, having received honorary doctorates from more than a dozen
universities and colleges. Through J@LC education programs, he regularly
conducts master classes, lectures, and concerts for students of all ages,
including the popular J@LC Jazz for Young PeopleSM
concerts. He has also been featured in the TV production of
Marsalis on Music for the Public Broadcasting System and the series
Making the Music for National Public Radio, which won a Peabody
Award in 1996. Mr. Marsalis has also written a companion book for the PBS
series, as well as Sweet Swing Blues on the Road, a collaboration
with J@LC photographer Frank Stewart.
Mr. Marsalis was named one of “America’s 25 Most Influential People” by
Time magazine and one of “The 50 Most Influential Boomers” by Life
magazine in recognition of his critical role in stimulating an increased
awareness of jazz in the consciousness of an entire generation of jazz fans
and artists. In March 2001, Mr. Marsalis was awarded the United Nations
designation of “Messenger of Peace” by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and
in June 2002, received the Congressional “Horizon Award.”
source: http://www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/jazz/arti/lcjo/marsalis.html |