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$20 general admission
Students free (ticket required
Mead Witter School of Music Guest Artist Series
Dennis Mackrel, drums
With Jazz Standards Ensemble & UW Jazz Orchestra
……
Jazz drummer Dennis Mackrel is the Director of Jazz Studies and Associate Chair of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in Flushing, NY. He is a former member of the Count Basie Orchestra from 1983-1987, as the last drummer to be hired by Count Basie himself, and later as the orchestra’s leader from 2010-2013, and of leading big bands such as the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the American Jazz Orchestra, the Carla Bley Big Band, Buck Clayton’s Swing Band, and the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Big Band, as well as small groups, including the George Shearing Quintet and the Hank Jones Trio. He has also recorded with Maria Schneider, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Scott Robinson, Frank Wess, Bill Charlap, Bucky Pizzarelli, Joe Williams, and many others.
Mackrel has also served as conductor and/or arranger for the McCoy Tyner Big Band (including two GRAMMY-winning album releases, The Turning Point and Journey), the Danish Radio Big Band (Copenhagen, DK), the WDR Big Band (Cologne, DE), and the Kluvers Big Band (Aarhus, DK). He served as chief conductor of the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam, NL), which in 2019 was awarded the prestigious Edison Award for their double- CD Crossroads, and toured extensively in Europe, China, Russia, Indonesia, and the United States until the global pandemic of 2020. His compositions and arrangements have also been recorded by the United States Military Academy at West Point’s Jazz Knights Big Band, the Temple University Jazz Ensemble, the RIAS Big Band (Berlin, DE), the University of North Texas “One O’clock” Big Band, and the Columbus Jazz Orchestra.
Mackrel is an experienced jazz educator who conducts master classes, seminars, and workshops internationally. He has taught as guest professor at the Royal Conservatory in Aarhus (DK), as Visiting Artist in Jazz Studies at the Eastman School of Music and serves on the jazz faculties at the Birch Creek Summer Music Academy in Egg Harbor, WI and the Skidmore Jazz Institute in Saratoga Springs, NY. He has performed with the jazz ensembles of numerous colleges and high schools including the Eastman School of Music, Slippery Rock University, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Northern Illinois University, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, the University of Minnesota-Morris, New Trier High School, Sun Prairie High School, Western Illinois University, Southern Utah University, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Aarhus (DK), the University of Florida, Miami, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Elmhurst College, Michigan State University and many others.
