Press Release

For Immediate Release:
November 18, 2005

If Django Bates had been around when they were inventing the wheel, you would have put money on him proving it was better off square. Bates does everything inside out and backwards: he writes classical music with 1940s crooners' riffs wrapped inside it, bursts of swing that turn into precarious one-legged hops, virtuoso bebop sax overwhelmed by noise, dreamy ballads invaded by drunken hordes of tramping dissonances. He is the man who used to introduce accounts of “My Way,” or “New York, New York” with the words: "We're going to play a lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, LOVELY old song in a horrible new way." –John Fordham, “The Guardian”

Django Bates, the British-based "mad scientist" of jazz, will be in residence at New England Conservatory, December 7—8, 2005. The multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, and composer, will lead a public masterclass December 7 in NEC’s St. Botolph Hall in preparation for a concert of his music by the NEC jazz Orchestra, December 8 in NEC’s Jordan Hall.

Bates, who performs world-wide with his quartet Human Chain, and with the 19-piece musical juggernaut, Delightful Precipice, has collaborated with a diverse range of artists from the classical, jazz, Indian and pop worlds. In 1997, he was awarded the Danish Jazzpar prize, dubbed the Nobel prize of jazz.

Both masterclass and concert are free and open to the public. The schedule follows:

December 7, 2005
Django Bates masterclass
St. Botolph Hall, 1 p.m.
241 St. Botolph St. (corner Gainsborough St. and St. Botolph)
This masterclass will focus on work with piano and baritone horn.

December 8, 2005
NEC Jazz Orchestra plays works of Django Bates
NEC’s Jordan Hall at 8 p.m.

For more information, call the NEC Concert Line at (617) 585-1122 or visit NEC on the web at www.newenglandconservatory.edu/concerts

ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY

Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.

The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.

NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.

NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by more than two hundred stations throughout the United States.