Santa Rosa Junior College Big Band at Santa Rosa Junior College Jazz Series at Burbank Auditorium

The Santa Rosa Junior College Music Department presents the Evening Jazz Ensemble directed by Joe Perea featuring guest artist, jazz vocalist Kathy Kosins. Proceeds from the concert benefit the SRJC Foundation Band Fund.

Detroit-based jazz vocalist Kathy Kosins (www.kathykosins.com ) is an ASCAP award winning songwriter, record producer, and a recognized modern abstractionist painter whose works are renderings on improvised solos of the jazz masters. Her recent discography includes recordings on the Chiaroscuro, Mahogany Jazz and Resonance Records labels. She tours extensively throughout the US and Europe and has performed at major venues including the North Sea Jazz Festival, The Blue Note and Birdland in New York, and Vitellos in Los Angeles. Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune has referred to her as “one of the most alluring” voices in jazz. ...

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The Santa Rosa Junior College Music Department presents the Evening Jazz Ensemble directed by Joe Perea featuring guest artist, jazz vocalist Kathy Kosins. Proceeds from the concert benefit the SRJC Foundation Band Fund.

Detroit-based jazz vocalist Kathy Kosins (www.kathykosins.com ) is an ASCAP award winning songwriter, record producer, and a recognized modern abstractionist painter whose works are renderings on improvised solos of the jazz masters. Her recent discography includes recordings on the Chiaroscuro, Mahogany Jazz and Resonance Records labels. She tours extensively throughout the US and Europe and has performed at major venues including the North Sea Jazz Festival, The Blue Note and Birdland in New York, and Vitellos in Los Angeles. Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune has referred to her as “one of the most alluring” voices in jazz.

The Evening Jazz Ensemble is one of the legacies of SRJC. Created in 1973, this professional-caliber group has performed with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Joe Williams, Cal Tjader, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, and Bruce Forman. Recent performances include the Sonoma County Harvest Fair and the Reno Jazz Festival. The group has persevered despite the significant downsizing of classes, yet its continued existence along with countless other SRJC arts and athletics offerings remain threatened by the ongoing California budget crisis. The group’s director Joe Perea says, “This band is one of the gems of Sonoma County and one of the only of its kind left in the California Community College System. The band is a mix of virtuosic avocational and working musicians, along with some of our most advanced students from our daytime program who come together every Wednesday night to rehearse and perform some of the most challenging arrangements in the big band genre. Its sound is robust with orchestrated colors and textures that are impossible with the small group jazz combos that are prevalent in the area. Our repertoire is a mix of swing and contemporary styles that invokes memories of when live big bands accompanied touring artists and dominated late night TV, Las Vegas floor shows, and major jazz clubs. We will always have recordings, but nothing matches the experience of hearing that wall of sound in a live venue.”

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