Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis at Hill Auditorium

The University Musical Society (UMS) presents the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. The program will feature some of Wynton’s favorite music — from New Orleans roots to bebop to modern jazz — in celebration of his 50th birthday, in October 2011. The ensemble will also showcase a retrospective of Wynton’s music written for big band.

Led by nine-time Grammy award-winner and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and comprised of 15 of today’s finest jazz musicians, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) has been the resident orchestra of Jazz at Lincoln Center since 1988. Despite one of the most aggressive touring schedules in the business, JLCO makes each concert fresh, drawing in audiences who are continually energized and amazed by the group’s depth of outrageous talent.

Wynton Marsalis is the recipient of nine Grammy Awards. In 1983 he became the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards for both jazz and classical records; he repeated this distinction by winning jazz and classical Grammy Awards again in 1984. Today, Mr. Marsalis is the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards in five consecutive years (1983-1987).

Honorary degrees have been conferred upon Marsalis by over 25 of America’s leading academic institutions including Columbia, Harvard, Howard, Princeton, and Yale. Wynton Marsalis has also received the Louis Armstrong Memorial Medal and the Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts. He was inducted into the American Academy of Achievement and was dubbed an Honorary Dreamer by the “I Have a Dream Foundation.” The New York Urban League awarded Marsalis the Frederick Douglass Medallion for distinguished leadership and the American Arts Council presented him with the Arts Education Award. Time magazine selected him as one of America’s most promising leaders under age 40 in 1995, and in 1996 Time celebrated Marsalis again as one of America’s 25 most influential people.

In November 2005, Wynton Marsalis received The National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States Government. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan proclaimed Wynton Marsalis an international ambassador of goodwill for the Unites States by appointing him a UN Messenger of Peace (2001). In 1997 Wynton Marsalis became the first jazz musician ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his epic oratorio, Blood On The Fields, a work that was performed in Ann Arbor.

Wynton Marsalis serves as artistic director for Jazz at Lincoln Center and music director for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Under Wynton’s leadership, Jazz at Lincoln Center has developed an international agenda presenting rich and diverse programming that includes concerts, debates, film forums, dances, television and radio broadcasts, and educational activities.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has been the resident jazz group at Lincoln Center since 1988. Celebrated for its remarkable versatility and vast repertoire, which ranges from rare historic compositions to commissioned works, as well as the more popular compositions of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk, the ensemble also regularly premieres works commissioned from a variety of contemporary composers including Benny Carter, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, as well as JLCO members Wynton Marsalis, Wycliff Gordon, Ted Nash, and Ron Westray.