The Department of Music of Indiana University of Pennsylvania presents the 20th annual IUP Jazz Festival on April 18, 2020. The Festival will be held in Fisher Auditorium in the Performing Arts Center on the IUP campus beginning at 7:00 p.m. and will feature the IUP Jazz Band and the IUP Jazz Ensemble.
The featured guest artist for the concert is trumpeter Scotty Barnhart, the leader of the Count Basie Orchestra.
The IUP Jazz Band is led by James Flowers, professor of saxophone. The IUP Jazz Ensemble is directed by Kevin Eisensmith, professor of trumpet.
Scotty Barnhart is an internationally acclaimed jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, educator, author, producer, two-time Grammy winner, and director of the Count Basie Orchestra. Prior to being selected as director in 2013, he was its featured trumpet soloist for 20 years, and in 2015 he was executive producer of A Very Swingin' Basie Christmas!, the very first Christmas recording in the history of the Count Basie Orchestra. It went to number one on the charts. Under his leadership, the orchestra won the Downbeat Magazine Readers Poll as the top jazz orchestra in the world for 2018, and their 2018 recording, All About That Basie, featuring special guest Stevie Wonder, was nominated for a Grammy for "Best Large Jazz Ensemble."
Scotty appears on three critically acclaimed recordings with pianist Marcus Roberts and over 20 others with artists as diverse as Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, and Ray Charles. He has performed with Frank Sinatra, Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Nat Adderley, Aretha Franklin, Barbara Streisand, George Benson, and many others; has been featured in the Asian Wall Street Journal; performed at the Academy Awards; and is in demand as a soloist and lecturer on jazz history all over the world. In 2009, Unity Music released his solo CD, Say It Plain. It reached number three on the jazz charts.
Scotty is co-founder and artistic director of the Florida Jazz and Blues Festival, and is professor of jazz trumpet with tenure at Florida State University, where two of his former students won first place in the National Jazz Trumpet Competition. His groundbreaking book, The World of Jazz Trumpeta Comprehensive History and Practical Philosophy, was published in December 2005 to rave reviews. The updated and revised edition contains over 50 interviews with many of the most important jazz trumpeters of the last 100 years and is due for completion in 2020.
He is a graduate of Florida A&M University with a degree in music education, and in 2017 he was honored as a distinguished alumnus with a permanent plaque and photo being placed within the Gallery of Distinction in the FAMU Department of Music. He has appeared as guest conductor and lecturer at such prestigious institutions as the Juilliard School of Music and others and is profiled in the book Trumpet Kings, which places him among the greatest jazz trumpeters in history. In 2019, he formed the Scotty Barnhart Orchestra, with its debut performance being the Governor's Inaugural Ball. Since 1989, he has played Monette trumpets and mouthpieces exclusively.
Barnhart will present a clinic in Cogswell Hall, room 121, on Friday, April 17, beginning at 5:00 p.m. and a clinic on the big band on Saturday, April 18, beginning at 2:00 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium. The clinics are free and open to the general public. Cost of tickets for the Saturday evening concert is $10 for regular admission, $8 for senior citizens and students, and $6 with an I-Card.
For more information about this concert, please call the IUP Department of Music at 724-357-2390.