Jazz at UVA

The jazz program in the McIntire Department of Music maintains an active dedication to the history and performance of jazz in all its forms. The department regularly funds visiting artists as well as hosting our resident musicians and ensembles (including the Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Chamber Ensembles, and the resident faculty ensemble, the Free Bridge Quintet), which perform classic jazz and swing, along with contemporary repertoires for well-attended performances in Old Cabell Hall.

We also maintain a very active pedagogical program devoted to bringing students and professional musicians together.
Featured artists-in-residence in past years have included David Liebman, Pat Metheny, pianist Armen Donelian, trumpeter Clark Terry, drummer Bob Moses, saxophonists Joe Henderson and Mike Brecker, as well as guitarists Kurt Rosenwinkel and John Abercrombie. The 2008-09 year will feature a multi-day residency by Terence Blanchard, the world-renowned trumpeter, bandleader, and film composer who will perform with the Jazz Ensemble and work directly with undergraduate students in the department’s Jazz and Jazz Chamber Ensembles while visiting with students in the popular History of Jazz lecture course, which regularly hosts visiting and resident jazz musicians and ensembles.