Over the last ten years, the Greater St. Louis Jazz Festival has grown to be one of the most significant jazz festivals in the Midwest. Produced by the University of Missouri–St. Louis, the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center and Jazz St. Louis, the 2013 festival will run April 18-20 and feature Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour, Doc Severinsen and His Big Band and Anat Cohen and Matt Wilson.
Every time The Second City touring company returns to the University of Missouri–St. Louis for its extremely popular annual show at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center, a future legend could be onstage. Named the country’s “Comedy Empire” by The New York Times, the Chicago-based improv group has a reputation for cultivating the next generation of comedic royalty with alumni including Tina Fey, Bill Murray and Steven Colbert.
The College of Fine Arts & Communication at the University of Missouri–St. Louis announced their new program for students to earn a Certificate in Audio Recording. The college is collaborating with Ira DeWitt, president and founder of Notifi Records; the UMSL Department of Music; and the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center, to offer this certificate program that provides participants with the necessary technical skills needed for the production of high-quality sound recordings.
Maybe pairing a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and the one of the world’s finest banjo players shouldn’t work. But the BBC calls Chick Corea and Bela Fleck “everything a collaboration of this caliber should be – perhaps even a little bit more.”
MADCO, the resident dance company at the University of Missouri–St. Louis will pick up speed in “Momentum” by performing the work of some of the nation’s hottest choreographers, including Gina Patterson (Austin, Texas) and Janice Garrett (San Francisco).
The St. Louis Jazz Orchestra will pay tribute to one of the leading bands of the swing era, the Count Basie Orchestra, with a concert at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. “A Night of Count Basie” will begin at 7 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Blanch M. Touhill Performing Arts Center at UMSL.
In 50 years the University of Missouri–St. Louis has grown from one building, 26 faculty members and about 700 students to “a major educational presence in the region,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The Arianna String Quartet will welcome award-winning violist Elias Goldstein Feb. 6 to the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.