Results for "Pacific Northwest"

Kate Skinner

Jazz pianist and vocalist Kate Skinner maintains an active performing, composing, and teaching career in the western United States.  A native of Ogden, Utah, Skinner pulls influences from the bluegrass and classical roots of her childhood into both her songwriting and performing as a jazz musician.  In her teenage and college years, Kate delved into R&B, funk, and hip hop, genres that also continually find their way into her musical explorations helping to create her own unique voice.  Part of this unique voice is an obsession with alternative keyboard instruments and a study of the great keyboardists of jazz, rock, and funk. 

Alex Lardie

Homegrown in Boise, ID, Alex Lardie received his B.M. degrees in Music Education and Saxophone Performance from the University of Idaho in 2020 and was a regular performer and award-winner at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. Throughout his performing career, Lardie has performed with many jazz artists including Bruce Forman, Carl Saunders, Scott Whitfield, Dominick Farinacci, Marcus Printup, and the New York Voices.

After regularly performing with Carnival Cruise Lines from 2019-2020, Lardie began his teaching career and has taught at every grade level from kindergarten to early college. He also assists in managing the annual Gem State Jazz Camp, available to secondary band students.

Darrell Grant

Born: May 30, 1962

Darrell Grant has risen from the pianist in vocalist Betty Carter’s trio to an internationally-recognized performer, composer, and educator who channels the power of music to foster community, sustainability, and social justice. Having performed with jazz luminaries including Frank Morgan, Tony Williams, Brian Blade, Esperanza Spalding, and Nicholas Payton, he followed his 1994 New York Times Top 10 Jazz Album Black Art with seven albums receiving critical acclaim from The Village Voice and DownBeat Magazine. He has toured as a bandleader and solo artist throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe as well as in Turkey and Japan in venues from Paris’s La Villa jazz club to the Havana Jazz Festival. Dedicated to themes of hope, community, and place, Grant’s compositions include his 2012 Step by Step: The Ruby Bridges Suite honoring the civil rights icon

Dmitri Matheny

Born: December 25, 1965

Celebrated for his warm tone, soaring lyricism and masterful technique, American musician Dmitri Matheny has been lauded as “one of the most emotionally expressive improvisers of his generation” (International Review of Music).  First introduced to jazz audiences in the 1990s as the protégé of Art Farmer, Matheny has matured into “one of the jazz world's most talented horn players” (San Francisco Chronicle). Born on Christmas Day, 1965 in Nashville,Tennessee, Dmitri was raised in Georgia and Arizona. Attracted to his father’s collection of jazz and classical LP records, Dmitri began piano lessons at age 5, switched to the trumpet at age 9, and took up the flugelhorn at 18. Matheny attended the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, then the Berklee College of Music, Boston, graduating magna cum laude in 1989.  After private studies with Carmine Caruso in New York City, Matheny became the protégé of the legendary Art Farmer, a formative relationship that lasted over a decade.  Farmer, “the bebop master who defined the sound of the flugelhorn in modern jazz” (All Music Guide), was Matheny’s public champion and private mentor