Jazz Meets Symphony BMW Finale Series

Jazz Meets Symphony BMW Finale Series

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, in association with BMW, presents three summer concerts of jazz favourites, featuring Grammy award winners, Alan Broadbent, and soulful singer Tierney Sutton, who has been compared to Ella Fitzgerald. These concerts will be performed in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The NZSO, with the Alan Broadbent Trio, will play orchestral arrangements of jazz favourites including Sammy Fain's 'That Old Feeling', 'Stardust' and Cole Porter's famous 'Everytime we say goodbye'.

Broadbent says, "Seventy years of history have proved that memorable melodies from the 1930s and 40s have an amazing ability to meld into the personality and feelings of the jazz improviser or jazz vocalist. Add to this the art of rhythm and we have our own canon of Louis Armstrong, Lester Young and Charlie Parker, comparable to the three Bs of classical music - and I'm familiar with all six gentlemen!"

Following studies of the classics, the Auckland-born composer, arranger and jazz pianist began performing professionally at the age of 15. A graduate of Boston's Berklee College of Music, he settled in Los Angeles and began working with such notable musicians as Nelson Riddle (his pianist for 10 years.), David Rose, Johnny Mandel and Henry Mancini. In addition to his own recording projects, Broadbent has arranged and conducted Mel Torme's Tribute to Bing Crosby, Scott Hamilton's With Strings, Marian McPartland's Silent Pool and Natalie Cole's Take a Look, Holly and Ivy and Stardust.

Broadbent has been described by the Jazz Times as "one of the major keyboard figures of the day," and by the Penguin Guide to Jazz, vol4, "...insights so profound that one is left at a loss for words. Broadbent deserves the highest acclaim."

In 1997 he won his first Grammy for his arrangement of 'When I Fall in Love' for Natalie Cole and in 2000 he earned his second Grammy for best arrangement accompanying a vocal for 'Lonely Town', which he wrote for Charlie Haden's Quartet West featuring Shirley Horn and strings. Broadbent is currently the musical director for Diana Krall.

Vocalist Tierney Sutton's mother insists that she sang before she could talk. Her childhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was filled with Conservatory choirs and musical theatre. However, it wasn't until she heard the rich harmonies of jazz, that her desire to become a professional singer was born.

Like Broadbent, a graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Sutton heads the Jazz Vocal department at the University of Southern California and can be seen at the best jazz spots in Los Angeles with her own group featuring the cream of L.A.'s musical community. A versatile studio singer, Sutton's voice has been featured in a variety of movie and television soundtracks as well as on television ads for BMW and Coca- Cola.

PROGRAMME

ALAN BROADBENT CONDUCTOR

TIERNEY SUTTON VOCALIST

THE ALAN BROADBENT TRIO

'JAZZ MEETS SYMPHONY'

Music by Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, Hoagy Carmichael, Kurt Weill, Lionel Bart and Tommy Dorsey among others. Enjoy a classic summer evening entertainment with the NZSO.

Saturday 6 December Auckland Town Hall 8pm

Tuesday 9 December Christchurch Town Hall 8pm

Thursday 11 December Wellington MFC 8pm

Tickets

BOOK AT TICKETEK

$55, $45, $30 PLUS CONCESSIONS

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