The Hamilton College Department of Music presents the Jazz Kick Off Concert on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 7:30 p.m., in Wellin Hall, Schambach Center. “Doc” Woods and The Salt City Jazz Collective start the year off with an evening of jazz and a suite of new charts by Woods.
The evening will feature Syracuse’s Salt City Jazz Collective under the direction of Angelo Candela. Syracuse’s Salt City Jazz Collective is a 16-piece big band with solid traditional roots. It has earned recognition by boldly delivering the historical compositions of its genre’s greatest icons including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Glenn Miller, and Tommy Dorsey.
Michael “Doc” Woods was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1952 and attended Akron University where he received a B.M. degree in composition. He went on to obtain two masters degrees from the Indiana University and earned his doctorate in music composition at the University of Oklahoma in 1991. Woods also studied jazz arranging and film scoring at Berklee College of Music in Boston and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Arts Administration.
Wellin Hall in the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts annually hosts two professional performing arts series: Classical Connections and Contemporary Voices and Visions.
As a composer, Woods was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has written over 650 pieces in all styles. His compositions have been performed by the Albany Symphony, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Little Rock Symphony, the Tulsa Philharmonic, the Lafayette Symphony (Lafayette, Ind.), the Pro Musica Orchestra (Columbus, Ind.), the Central New York Jazz Orchestra, and the Salt City Jazz Collective.
This event is free and open to the public. All seats are on the Wellin Hall stage. No tickets required. For more information call the box office at 859-4331.
