Features

 

Jazz & Beyond Homepage

 

Festival details page

 

Festival schedule and links

Festival schedule
(printable PDF, up-to-date)

 

Garden Party at the Governor's Mansion - Aug. 2

 

Piano Summit - Aug. 4

 

History of Rock n' Roll - Aug. 6

 

Speakeasy Dance - Aug. 9

 

Festival sponsors

 

View Jazz & Beyond 2013 Performance Locations
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Jazz & Beyond

 

MHJB Homepage

 

Link to 2012's
"Jazz & Beyond" Festival Details

Link to 2011's
"Jazz! Carson City" Festival Details

The Mile High Jazz Band Association formed in 2001 as a nonprofit corporation to support the MHJB and its subgroup, the Millennium Bugs (jazz combo), promote live jazz performance in northern Nevada, educate the public about jazz, and enrich the cultural life of the community. Member benefits include mailings, discounts on admissions, and invitations to special events, plus the satisfaction of helping big-band jazz to thrive!

To book the Mile High Jazz Band (big band) or Millennium Bugs (jazz combo), call 775-883-4154.

• Date - Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013
• Time - 1:30 to 4:15 p.m.
• Location - Brewery Arts Center Performance Hall (the old church building)
• Cost - FREE

The Mile High Jazz Band Association and the Brewery Arts Center present pianists Alexander Tutunov, Lisa DeSpain, and Tristan Selzler in a Piano Summit on Sunday, August 4, 2013, 1:30 to 4:15 p.m. at the Brewery Arts Center Performance Hall, 511 W. King Street, Carson City. Admission is free.

This special event, part of the 2013 "Jazz & Beyond: Carson City Music Festival," is for music fans and musicians of all ages who want to hear and learn about American popular piano music, including the Gershwin era, musical theater, and jazz. The piano summit is supported with public funding through a grant from Nevada Humanities.

Alexander Tutunov is widely recognized as one of the most outstanding virtuosos of the former Soviet Union. First Prize winner of the Belarusian National Piano Competition and winner of the Russian National Piano Competition, Tutunov's playing was described by Soviet Culture, Moscow, as "exhilarating and inspired, and which demonstrated a unique talent".

Dr. Tutunov maintains a busy performing schedule in Europe, China, Mexico, and the United States as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and on radio and television. Dr. Tutunov is also in demand as an adjudicator for piano competitions. He will be familiar to Carson City audiences as a frequent soloist with the Carson City Symphony.

Alexander Tutunov now lives in Ashland, where he is Professor of Piano and Artist in Residence at Southern Oregon University. A successful piano pedagogue, he continues to prepare award-winning students. Dr. Tutunov is Artist in Residence at the University of Alaska Southeast, Artistic director of the SOU International Piano Institute, and was recently named the Director of the Chinese-American International Piano Institute in Chengdu, China.

His website is at http://www.tutunov.com.

Lisa DeSpain appeared as a piano soloist on the Carson City music festival in 2004 that eventually became "Jazz & Beyond." Lisa Despain is one of the leading young composers on the American concert music scene. Known for her tasteful blending of jazz, classical, American folk and theatrical music, she is prodigiously commissioned and sought after for works of a definitive "American" sound.

Her musical training was conducted under some of the greatest masters in jazz and American musical theater including Ellis Marsalis, Eliane Elias, Manny Album, Stephen Flaherty, and Maury Yeston.

In 2000, Ms. DeSpain was named emerging jazz composer of the year by ASCAP and awarded the ASCAP/IAJE Commission Honoring Duke Ellington. Additional awards have included an Aaron Copland Fellowship, a Barlow Commission, and three American Composers Forum Commissions.

In musical theater, Ms. DeSpain and her collaborator, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, have been awarded a Dramatists Guild Fellowship and a Eugene O’Neill Musical Theater Fellowship, for their work, "Storyville" an original tale of redemption set during the last days of New Orleans' famed red-light district and the birthplace of jazz.

Tristan Selzler is a graduate of UNR's Jazz Studies Program, and he now teaches at Davidson Academy in Reno, on the UNR campus. His musical focuses are jazz piano, trombone performance, blues guitar, and singing. His compositions are innovative, progressive modern jazz, straight-ahead jazz, and electric music, encompassing funk, soul, hip-hop and related genres.