International Tuba Soloist, Velvet Brown, held a clinic workshop with CWRU Jazz Ensembles and low brass students on Thu. 3/24/2022 from 4:30 - 6:00 PM in Wade Rehearsal Hall, where she rehearsed the Tuba Concerto that Paul Ferguson (CWRU) wrote for her. She and Ellen Rowe (pianist) are guests with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra at the Maltz Center on 3/26/2022 and at BLU Jazz in Akron on 3/25/2022.
"Velvet on Ivory"
Cleveland Jazz Orchestra: Women in Jazz Series
Featuring Velvet Brown, tuba and Ellen Rowe, piano
https://clevelandjazz.org/
Connection to Case Western Reserve University:
This performance offers a chance for us to close the circle with one of the founders of CJO. The late Baritone saxophonist and composer Ann Stamm Merrell (1951-1999) helped found the North Coast Jazz Orchestra in the early 1980’s, a group which eventually became the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra. With the help of her husband Greg Merrell, the CJO, and our friends at Case Western University, we offer a new composition in her honor, “For the Girls in the Band,” composed by our guest, Ellen Rowe. Ann was a student at CWRU in the late 1960’s, performing under the great Bob Curnow. I met her during a summer arrangers workshop at Eastman in 1988–a truly beautiful person.
- Paul Ferguson, Artistic Director, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and Senior Instructor, Case Western Reserve University
