April 16, 2009
Tom Collier, Marc Seales in two concerts, April 17 and 24
Faculty artist Tom Collier and his UW percussion students present their annual concert of music for marimba at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 17, in Brechemin Auditorium.
Collier will also be joining Jazz Studies Professor Marc Seales for duets during a concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 24, in Brechemin Auditorium. Collier will be on vibraphone with Seales on piano. Seales will also perform solo works for piano.
Seales and Collier are both well known to Northwest audiences. Seales was born into a family of musicians and began studying piano at an early age. “I used to listen to all kinds of music,” he says, “the Brandenburg Concertos, the Chopin Polonaises, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Chet Atkins, you name it. In the 1970s I was even into San Francisco rock and that whole thing.”
Seales soon discovered, however, that jazz piano was his real love. At the forefront of the Northwest jazz scene for many years, Seales has been collecting rave reviews. He has been praised variously for his “meaty piano solos,” and “blues inflected, Herbie Hancock-inspired modernism.”
Collier, too, began studying music at an early age. He made his performance debut in 1954 at the age of 5, and celebrated the 50th anniversary of that triumph at the UW in 2004. He has been director of percussion studies at the University since 1980 and has presented over 300 jazz concerts in public schools around Washington State for the Arts In Education Program of the state Arts Commission. In 1980, Collier was presented with an “Outstanding Service To Jazz Education” award by the National Association of Jazz Educators, and over the past 20 years, he has won sixteen ASCAP Popular Panel Awards for his various jazz and percussion compositions.
Tickets for the percussion concert are $5; tickets for the Seales and Collier concert are $10. Tickets for both can be obtained at the door — cash or check only.
