NEA dollars keep the legends living

     (PNAN-DC) –  “Live interactions between musicians and audiences are essential to jazz,” said NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman. “These NEA Jazz Masters Live grants will provide audiences across the country direct interaction with those who have shaped, encouraged and developed this original American art form.” Of the $250,000 sum, fifteen non-profit organizations from around the nation will share in these grant dollars.

     Only the living, musicians or jazz advocates can be nominated by the public. If selected, they receive a one-time fellowship award of $25,000, including participation in NEA-sponsored promotional, performance and educational activities. For more about the program, see www.neajazzmasters.org.

     Those participating in NEA Jazz Masters Live events are musicians: Dave Brubeck, Paquito D’Rivera, Jimmy Heath and Randy Weston, as well as jazz historians and educators: Dan Morgenstern, Gunther Schuller and festival producer George Avakian. Through their landmark contributions which have advanced jazz, provides an array of venues, like performances, master classes, clinics, lectures, short term residencies, for audiences to experience the artists’ expertise.

     The 2011 organizations chosen for the NEA Jazz Masters Live are: New York: 92nd Street Y, Young Men’s & Women’s Hebrew Association; Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, New York City; Connecticut: Artists Collective, Hartford; Litchfield Jazz Festival, Litchfield; Vermont: Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington;  Washington: Centrum, Port Townsend; Louisiana:  Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; Massachusetts: Global Jazz Institute, Berklee College of Music, Tanglewood Jazz Festival; Symphony Orchestra, Boston; California: KCSM FM Jazz 91, San Mateo; SFJAZZ, San Francisco; Idaho: Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, Moscow; New Mexico: Outpost Productions, Albuquerque; Oregon: Portland Jazz Festival, Portland;  and Ohio: Tri-C JazzFest, Cleveland.