Cara Lieurance

Billy Hart always wants to learn more about music, even though he's been performing professionally since the 1950s, beginning with R&B acts like Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, while being mentored by jazz leaders Shirley Horn and Buck Hill. Originally from Washington, DC, Hart moved to New York in 1968 and became a fixture in a scene that included McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, and Joe Zawinul. Hart has performed as a sideman and a leader on over 600 albums, and continues to record, with his own quartet and with big band projects. 

Hart talks about some of his experiences and lessons learned over the years, as he previews his performance on Western Michigan University's Jazz Masters Series with fellow musicians Keith Hall (professor of jazz drums) and Tom Knific (professor of bass).

Ron Nelson's celebration of the Colorado landscape, Aspen Jubilee, Holst's First Suite in E-flat for Military Band, plus works by up-and-coming Michigan composers Andrew David Perkins and Paul Dooley are on the program for Sunday at 3 pm in Miller Auditorium, when the newly-named University Wind Symphony (formerly “Symphonic Band”) performs its first concert of the season.  Dr. Scott Boerma, director of bands at Western, tells Cara Lieurance about the newly formed ensemble as they preview the music.

Flutist Melissa Ngan, a member of the Chicago-based Fifth House Ensemble, tells Cara Lieurance about the innovative directions this modern chamber group has taken to give audiences visceral experiences with live music. Fifth House Ensemble will perform a program called "Degenerate Art" at the Connecting Chords Music Festival on Sunday at 7:30 pm, in the Dalton Theater of the Light Fine Arts Center at Kalamazoo College.

Delving into music that was censored, banned, and propagandized as “degenerate,” Fifth House Ensemble will shed new light on works by artists facing oppression under three different oppressive regimes: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the dark days of McCarthyism right here in the United States where individuals, ideas, and art were deemed un-American. Ngan discusses works of Schulhoff and Messiaen, Shostakovich, and Harold Arlen.

The Battle Creek Symphony will open its 120th season on Saturday, Oct 6 with From Russia to Ravel, featuring soloist Christopher O'Riley, who is known to millions as the long-time host, from 1999-2018, of NPR's From The Top. O'Riley and music director Anne Harrigan share their thoughts on the program, which includes Ravel's Piano Concerto in G and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5. 

Pianist Matthew Fries, bassist Phil Palombi, and drummer Keith Hall have performed together as Tri-Fi for over 15 years and recorded five albums. Tri-Fi will appear in concert in the Dalton Center Recital Hall on Wednesday, Oct 3 at 7:30 pm on the Bullock Performance Institute Series at WMU, but first, they showcase their chemistry in conversation with Cara Lieurance at WMUK.