Sara Gazarek Duo program

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Mon & Tue

MAR 18 & 19 7:30 pm

Pavilion

Sara Gazarek Duo

Just Friends Jazz Series

Sponsored by

We are pleased to partner with the Lied Center of Kansas to present the Just Friends Jazz Series.

MAR 18 & 19 | Sara Gazarek Duo

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There will be no intermission during this performance.

Selections will be announced from the stage.

Sara Gazarek Championed by some of music’s most celebrated figures, and with five highly acclaimed CD’s under her belt at the young age of 37, Sara Gazarek remains a strikingly original artist with seemingly limitless potential. Blessed with a gorgeous, translucent voice, excellent pitch and supple sense of time, Sara has been hailed by the LA Times as “the next important jazz singer” and “impeccable” by the Winnipeg Free Press.

Born and raised in Seattle, Gazarek grew up without much exposure to jazz. In her early teens, she was inspired by musical theater and dance, but she ended up discovering and falling in love with the jazz choir at her high school. Then director, Scott Brown, became the first of several essential musical mentors, steering her towards the great recordings and artists of our time. When Gazarek arrived at the University of Southern California (where she now resides as a faculty member in the Jazz Studies department), she was the only jazz studies vocal major in her class, and she studied privately with vocalists Tierney Sutton and Carmen Bradford, as well as pianist Shelly Berg and bassist/arranger John Clayton (who would become one of her most important champions). By 2003, people outside USC were starting to discover Gazarek. She won the prestigious Downbeat Student Music Award for Outstanding Collegiate Jazz Vocalist, a distinction that directly led to a spot on the Concord Jazz Festival Tour (with Oleta Adams, Karrin Allyson and Diane Schuur).

Fifteen years later, with five recordings, numerous collaborations, and national and international tours under her belt, alongside years of growth and living, her highly anticipated upcoming release, Thirsty Ghost (2019), will prove the inevitable journey of true artistry. Working closely with collaborators Geoff Keezer, Larry Goldings, Josh Johnson and Stu Mindeman, Gazarek reemerges with a program of emotionally expansive standards, inspired contemporary re-workings and incredibly memorable originals—all delivered with her insouciant sense of wholehearted storytelling and vulnerable artistry. Exploring new instrumentation (with rhythm section, Rhodes, saxophone, trombone and bass clarinet), Gazarek invites complex colors and concepts in a journey of growth, shadow and light.

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MAR 18 & 19 | Sara Gazarek Duo

Julian Shore Pianist Julian Shore is known for his “deep maturity as a composer and bandleader” (Downbeat) and has been called “a pianist/composer who, beyond the obvious elegance of his playing, has a clear sense of the bigger artistic picture” (Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen).

From Narragansett, Rhode Island, Shore grew up listening to his father playing Bach on his home piano and would often sing along as a toddler.

After starting piano lessons at a young age, he began studies with famed educator Hal Crook as a teenager. Shortly thereafter Shore was awarded a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music. During his time there, under the mentorship of Danilo Perez, he performed in the Panama Jazz Festival, learning from Wayne Shorter, Brian Blade and John Patitucci while there.

He moved to New York shortly after graduating and had his first serious performing experience with singer Gretchen Parlato, touring the U.S. and abroad with her band in 2010 including the Stockholm Jazz Festival.

Since then he has become one of the most in-demand pianists in New York, appearing as both leader and sideman at venues like Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and The Blue Note as well as jazz festivals around the globe. He has had the opportunity to perform, tour and record with musicians such as Theo Bleckmann, Gretchen Parlato, Ferenc Nemeth, Gilad Hekselman, Don Braden, Romero Lubambo, Matt Wilson, Ben Monder, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Kendrick Scott, Mark Giuliana, among many others.

His most recent record, Which Way Now, was released in early 2016 and features Gilad Hekselman, Dayna Stephens, Aidan Carroll, Colin Stranahan and a slew of guests and configurations. His debut record Filaments, which features Kurt Rosenwinkel, Noah Preminger, Tommy Crane, Phil Donkin, and others, was released to critical acclaim in 2012.