PIANIST DICK HYMAN TO PERFORM FOR WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY'S JAZZ ROOM SERIES Dick Hyman, a versatile musician hailed as one of the true geniuses of jazz piano, will perform with guitarist Howard Alden and bassist Rufus Reid at William Paterson University on Sunday, February 14 as part of the university's 1999 Winter Jazz Room Series. The concert will begin at 4 p.m. in the Shea Center for Performing Arts on the campus in Wayne. Tickets are available in advance or on the day of the performance at $9 standard; $6 for senior citizens, non-William Paterson students and William Paterson faculty, staff and alumni. William Paterson students may attend free of charge. Throughout a busy musical career that began in the 1950s, Hyman has functioned as a pianist, organist, arranger, conductor and composer. He has recorded over 100 albums in his own name as well as for other artists. His arrangements can be heard in the recent Barry Manilow CD, "Singin' With The Big Bands," and in older recordings by Tony Bennett and others. Since 1985, Hyman has acted as artistic director of the acclaimed "Jazz in July" series of concerts at New York's 92nd Street Y, and he frequently appears in the United States and abroad as a soloist. In 1995, he was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame of Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society. His recent schedule of concerts have included "Three-Piano Crossover" with Ruth Laredo and Marian McPartland and performances with Doc Severinsen and the Minnesota, Phoenix, Buffalo, and Milwaukee Orchestras. In years past, Hyman was music director for Arthur Godfrey and orchestrator of the hit musical "Sugar Babies." He has served as composer/arranger/conductor/pianist for the Woody Allen films "Zelig," "The Purple Rose of Cairo," "Broadway Danny Rose," "Stardust Memories," "Hannah and Her Sisters," "Radio Days," "Bullets Over Broadway," "Mighty Aphrodite," and "Everyone Says 'I Love You.'" Other film scores have included "Moonstruck," "Scott Joplin--King of Ragtime," and "The Lemon Sisters." In the dance field, Hyman composed and performed the score for the Cleveland Ballet's "Piano Man," for "Ivory Strides for Ballet Jazz de Montreal," and for Twyla Tharp's "The Bum's Rush" for the American Ballet Theatre. Hyman, Alden, and William Paterson Jazz Studies director Rufus Reid will be the guests for "Sittin' In," an informal, hosted discussion with the artists followed by a question-and-answer session. The talk begins at 3 p.m. in room 101 of Shea Center. Admission is free to all Jazz Room ticketholders. Launched in the spring of 1978, William Paterson's Jazz Room Series has earned a reputation for presenting concerts by eminent musicians in the jazz world. The series has been awarded numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and recently won a Citation of Excellence from the Council for its cultural contribution to the state. For additional information, please call William Paterson's Shea Center
Box Office at 973-720-2371. ### |