NEW WORKS TO BE COMPOSED BY FRED STURM
AND PASCAL LeBOEUF
For the seventh year, the annual ASCAP/
IAJE Commissioning program has selected two composers
to write new jazz works in honor of one of the genre’s
major figures. This year the new compositions have been
commissioned in celebration of the 70th birthday year
of composer/bandleader/arranger/trumpeter Quincy Jones.
The new works will receive their premiere performances
at the 2004 IAJE Conference in New York City. The commissionees
are, in the Established Composer category, Fred Sturm,
Director of Jazz and Improvisational Music at the Lawrence
University Conservatory of Music (Appleton, WI) and,
in the Emerging Composer category, Pascal Le Boeuf,
a 16 year-old music student who attends the Pacific
Collegiate Charter School (Santa Cruz, CA).
The ASCAP/IAJE commissions program has
previously celebrated Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter,
the Duke Ellington Centennial, the Louis Armstrong Centennial,
Dr. Billy Taylor, and Marian McPartland, respectively.
The program awards two cash prizes -- the first to an
established jazz composer of international prominence,
the other to an emerging jazz composer under the age
of 35. The commissioned works must be written for ensembles
of more than four and less than eighteen players.
In addition to his position at Lawrence
University, Fred Sturm is also principal guest conductor
of the Hessischer Rundfunk (German Public Radio for
the State of Hessen) Big Band in Frankfurt and a visiting
conductor of professional jazz ensembles and radio orchestras
in Europe; a director of university jazz ensembles and
high school all-state jazz bands throughout the U.S.;
a clinician at national educational conferences and
festivals; and a composer-in-residence for school and
university music programs. His jazz compositions and
arrangements have been performed by Bobby McFerrin,
Wynton Marsalis, Bob Brookmeyer, Clark Terry, Phil Woods
and Dianne Reeves, among others. Sturm’s works
have been issued on such labels as Concord Jazz, RCA,
hrMedia, and Warner Brothers Records. In 1989, he was
the recipient of a Grammy Award nomination. Other honors
include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts,
Meet the Composer, the National Academy of Recording
Arts and Sciences, the Howard Hanson Institute for American
Music, and the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund.
Pascal LeBoeuf, though still in his teens,
is a veteran composer and musician. As a pianist, he
has been honored by the San Jose Jazz Festival, the
Youth Piano Competition and the Santa Cruz Jazz Festival.
In 2002, LeBoeuf was the recipient of an Honorable Mention
in The ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composers Competition.
Pascal LeBoeuf performs with his twin brother, Remy,
in a band called Deuces Wild, which often plays Pascal’s
original compositions. LeBouef is shortly to begin his
senior year at Pacific Collegiate Charter School. He
also studies at Cabrillo College and at the University
of California, Santa Cruz.
Quincy Jones has been a global goodwill
ambassador and a leading force in American music for
over five decades. His achievements as arranger, producer,
conductor, trumpeter and composer are legendary –
he has been closely associated with a broad spectrum
of the world’s best-known jazz, pop and R&B
stars. In jazz, Jones has worked with such artists as
Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie,
Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Charles Mingus
and many more.
ASCAP is the world’s largest performing
rights organization, with over 160,000 composer, lyricist
and music publisher members in the United States, representing
music of every variety and style. ASCAP is the only
U.S. performing rights organization governed by and
for its members.