Gazarek brings experience and expertise as Associate Professor of Jazz Voice at the Eastman School of Music.
When it comes to the reputation of producing successful jazz and popular music artists, there’s a perceived Bermuda Triangle of sorts among American universities between the Northeast (Boston, New York City), south to Miami and west to North Texas and Southern California.
Yet further upstate in New York lies a private music school that’s thrived since being founded by George Eastman, of Eastman Kodak Company fame, since 1921. The Eastman Music School at the University of Rochester was named the Top Music Business School last year by Billboard, and its long list of celebrated alumni includes iconic jazz bassist Ron Carter, flugelhornist Chuck Mangione, composer Maria Schneider, classical soprano Renee Fleming, progressive rock and pop bassist Tony Levin and all-world session drummer Steve Gadd.
Seattle-born jazz vocalist Sara Gazarek studied and taught at one of the West Coast’s top universities, the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The 43-year-old, two-time Grammy Award-winning singer is now Associate Professor of Jazz Voice at Eastman, which offers a new Jazz Voice degree within its Jazz and Contemporary Media program.
“It’s an opportunity to put together a program to address what our jazz vocal students really need to help them thrive in the world of performance art,” Gazarek says.
Gazarek and saxophonist/fellow faculty member Christine Jensen launched the school’s inaugural Sisters in Jazz weekend last September. Jensen, a Canadian, has won multiple Juno Awards and was the first woman appointed to the school’s Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media faculty.
Faculty co-workers include recent appointees in drummer Otis Brown III, whose credits include Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding and Robert Glasper, as Assistant Professor of Jazz Drum Set, and trombonist Marshall Gilkes (Wynton Marsalis, Richard Bona, WDR Big Band) as Associate Professor of Jazz Trombone.
For further information, visit esm.rochester.edu.
Photo by Lauren Desberg
