Get your calendar. Add: July 25 and 26, 8pm. Hot Summer Nights and Cool Jazz. Shaver Theater, LSU. Get there early, sit back, relax, and get ready for mind blowing music provided by the LSU Faculty Jazz Trio and guests. On the left side of the stage you will find Professor Willis Delony. Pay close attention to his playing; you’re in for a real treat. He is our Musician of the Week.
Willis Delony has won national and international acclaim as a jazz and classical pianist, conductor, chamber player, commercial composer, and arranger. His concert explorations of the jazz and classical piano worlds are showcased in a recent recording of music by American composers entitled Double Dance – Classical and Jazz Connections II, which was released by Centaur Records in 2008. A previous album, also on the Centaur label, is entitled A New World A’ Comin’ – Classical and Jazz Connections. Both are now in international distribution. In a Fanfare magazine review of A New World A’ Comin’, Peter Burwasser writes: “(Delony) plays with gusto and finesse, and with an especially nimble rhythmic sensibility, a proper combination of attributes for jazz, or any other kind of music-making, for that matter.” Previous album credits include a recording of sonatas by Samuel Barber and Sergei Prokofiev, also on the Centaur label, and a jazz album entitled Civilized Conversations, featuring Delony and bassist Bill Grimes. He is featured in a collaboration with bassoonist William Ludwig on the recent recording, Rhapsody in Bassoon, on the Mark Records label, which features the world premiere recording of André Previn’s Sonata for Bassoon and Piano.
During recent concert seasons, Delony has appeared as piano soloist or conductor with American orchestras in Wichita, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Toronto, Madison (Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra), Spartanburg (South Carolina), Rochester, Omaha, Nashville, Fort Worth, New Orleans (Louisiana Philharmonic), Shreveport, the Sun River Festival Orchestra in Bend, OR and the Florida Orchestra (Tampa). He has appeared recently as guest soloist with the Columbus (GA) Symphony, Orlando Philharmonic, Toledo Symphony, the Baton Rouge Symphony, the Louisiana Sinfonietta and, in a 2002 Asian tour, the Shanghai Symphony. In July, 2006 he performed a solo recital in Offenburg, Germany as part of the Kreuzgangkonzerte series, performing a solo recital program entitledJazz Meets Mozart. In November, 2006 he traveled to Paris for an appearance as solo recitalist on the La Main d’Or concert series. An experienced jazz arranger, Delony’s scores have been performed by orchestras throughout the U.S. and Canada. His work as pianist, arranger and conductor is currently featured in Club Swing and Stay Tuned, the popular orchestral shows featuring the Minneapolis-based vocal group Five By Design. He is conductor/pianist on the CD recording of Club Swing, which was released in January 2002.
Delony is the Barineau Professor of Keyboard Studies and Professor of Jazz Studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Prior to his LSU appointment in August of 2000, he taught for fourteen years on the music faculty at Southeastern Louisiana University where he received the university’s President’s Award for Excellence in Artistic Activity. He is also the recipient of an Artist Fellowship by the Louisiana Division of the Arts in recognition of his achievements in classical and jazz performance.
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