4/19/05

Lake Michigan College and New Buffalo High School Jazz Bands to Collaborate in Concert

BENTON TOWNSHIP, MI - The Lake Michigan College Music Department will present its annual Spring Spectacular Jazz Concert on Sunday, May 1, at 4 p.m. with the LMC Jazz Band and special guests the New Buffalo High School Jazz Band.

The LMC Jazz Band, directed by Jim Cooper, performs in concert each semester and their repertoire includes music in all styles of the jazz and rock idioms. Their program will include works by George Gershwin, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Duke Ellington. The band will also perform Cooper's original chart "Itchin' to Groove" as well as arrangements by Cooper of "Autumn Leaves" and "Orange Colored Sky."

The New Buffalo Jazz Band, directed by Jennifer Hyslop, began as a curricular ensemble in 1999 as a mixture of middle school and high school students. Now 25 members strong and consisting of high school members only, the band studies a wide range of music focusing on jazz standards such as music by Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and other big band classics. In 2003, the band first presented its annual Jazz in the Courtyard concert, an outdoor program at New Buffalo High School. New Buffalo also hosts the MSBOA District 6 Jazz Festival each April.

The performance will be in the Hanson Theater of the Mendel Center, located Lake Michigan College's Napier Avenue campus in Benton Township, one mile east of interstate I-94 at exit 30. Tickets for the concert are $7 for adults and $5 for students and senior citizens. Groups of 20 or more can purchase individual tickets for $4 each. Tickets are available through the Mendel Center Box Office at (269) 927-1221.