Jazz Orchestra, Minneapolis

April 2024.  

What a fabulous concert! I had the idea to put together a small jazz ensemble or “little big band” with a full strings complement, singers, and percussion section to perform American jazz standards and music from Latin America during our pandemic “down” time. The summer of 2020 provided me with weeks of writing time to create most of these arrangements, but it took another four years before we were able to program this music for a concert at Augsburg University.

Strings players in the United States rarely have the chance to engage with our authentically American contribution to the world’s music, jazz. Grappling with idiomatic phrasing, articulation, and the dense harmonic language presented just the kind of challenge that I wanted for our university string players to encounter. And experiencing the larger forces of a symphony orchestra and coming to terms with balance and just tuning issues was a great experience for our jazz-focused students as well.

Listen to Sam Ryden perform one of my favorite tunes for this concert!