Crane professor and jazz students to perform with Wynton Marsalis Dec. 10 in New York City

POTSDAM -- Crane School of Music Professor Bret Zvacek and five Jazz Studies program students will perform with jazz legend Wynton Marsalis Dec. 10 in New York City.

Marsalis is to receive an honorary Doctor of Music degree presented by SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher at the event.

SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music nominated Marsalis for the honorary degree through SUNY to recognize his artistry and charitable work on behalf of music education.

Marsalis has visited SUNY Potsdam twice to perform in concert along with his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra through the Community Performance Series.

While in Potsdam, members of his orchestra conducted masterclasses with Crane students, and Marsalis opened the final rehearsals for the concerts to the public.

"SUNY Potsdam is so proud to honor Wynton Marsalis, who has brought the gift of jazz and poetry to millions across the globe. Not only is he an exceptional artist, author and visionary, Wynton is an inspiration as an educator who, in sharing his passion with students young and old, has helped to bring about a revival of American jazz," said College Pres. John F. Schwaller.

Marsalis embodies the principles that guide the State University of New York in its mission "to learn, to search, to serve," and especially in its efforts to revitalize SUNY's connections to vibrant communities around the world. Additionally, his enthusiasm for music education mirrors that of the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, which has been educating generations of music teachers and performers since the School's founding in 1886.

SUNY will honor Marsalis from 3 to 5 p.m. Dec. 10 in the Yamaha Piano Salon at Yamaha Artist Services Inc. on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Honored guests, alumni and select faculty and staff will attend.

The ceremony will be recorded and streamed live over the web. Links for the livestream will be available on Dec. 10 at www.potsdam.edu/crane. SUNY Potsdam students, faculty and staff will also view video of the event live in a screening on campus that day at the Crane School of Music. The public is invited to the free event.

Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, educator and a leading advocate of American culture. He is the world's first jazz artist to perform and compose across the full jazz spectrum from its New Orleans roots to bebop to modern jazz. By creating and performing an expansive range of brilliant new music for quartets to big bands, chamber music ensembles to symphony orchestras, tap dance to ballet, Marsalis has expanded the vocabulary for jazz and created a vital body of work that places him among the world's finest musicians and composers.

In 1987, Marsalis co-founded a jazz program at Lincoln Center. In July 1996, due to its significant success, Jazz at Lincoln Center was installed as a new constituent of Lincoln Center, equal in stature with the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, and New York City Ballet-a historic moment for jazz as an art form and for Lincoln Center as a cultural institution. Jazz at Lincoln Center is a mecca for learning as well as a hub for performance. Their comprehensive educational programming includes a Band Director's Academy, a hugely popular concert series for kids called Jazz for Young People, Jazz in the Schools, a Middle School Jazz Academy, WeBop! (for kids ages eight months to five years), an annual High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival that reaches over 2,000 bands in 50 states and Canada, and online learning tools.

Marsalis has devoted his life to uplifting populations worldwide with the egalitarian spirit of jazz. And while his body of work is enough to fill two lifetimes, Marsalis continues to work tirelessly to contribute even more to our world's cultural landscape. It has been said that he is an artist for whom greatness is not just possible, but inevitable. It is Marsalis's commitment to the improvement of life for all people that portrays the best of his character and humanity. Read more at www.wyntonmarsalis.org.