By Matt Micucci
The New York Jazzharmonic is a seventeen piece jazz band composed of world class musicians. Headed by artistic director and founder Ron Wasserman, the principal bass of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the band performed at the highly praised kickoff concert in July at the Washington Square Music Festival.
Ron Wasserman says, “As a New York musician, I’ve been very lucky over the last 25+ years to have had a full time job at Lincoln Center in the NYC Ballet orchestra. I am forming this band in part to help other deserving musicians, who, these days, can find it more and more of a struggle to carve out an artistic life. I’m hoping that with critical and audience interest, we can create a world class institution that will offer an important affiliation to these 17 players as they live out their careers.”
Now, the innovative new big jazz band will begin its inaugural season with a special opening concert on Nov 1 at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre of Symphony Space, New York, which will be followed by three more concerts.
This performance will also feature the world premiere of The Four Seasons of New York Jazz. This is a concerto for jazz orchestra composed by Ron Wasserman.
Special guest artist will be Cristina Pato, world renowned player of Galician Bagpipes. Other guests this season will be Jim McNeely, Lara St. John, JP Jofre, and Andrew Litton.
The new group of the New York Jazzharmonic will keep up the tradition of mixing hazz standards, newly composed music, crossover and classical. For more information about the entire series of their upcoming concerts, visit their website ->www.nyjazzharmonic.org<-