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Marsalis: World premiere of Two in 3 and release of new book

(September 2008)

Marsalis: World premiere of Two in 3 and release of new book Moving to Higher Ground

Wynton Marsalis returns to Michigan State University for the world premiere of his new piece Two in 3, performed by the renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and MSU Symphony Orchestra on September 24. The performance is part of a multi-day artist residency with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra from September 22-24.

Two in 3 celebrates Michigan and is made possible through a partnership between Wharton Center, the MSU College of Music, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Following the MSU premiere the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will perform the piece with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on September 27.

In addition to his continuing roles as composer, performer, and educator, this month Marsalis has become the author of another inspiring book: Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (Random House). Written with Geoffrey C. Ward, Moving to Higher Ground explores the role of jazz and music in American life.

Says Marsalis: “In this book I hope to reach a new audience with the positive message of America’s greatest music, to show how great musicians demonstrate on the bandstand a mutual respect and trust that can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life–from individual creativity and personal relationships to conducting business and understanding what it means to be American in the most modern sense."

To purchase the book click here.

Press for Moving to Higher Ground:

“Wynton Marsalis has been a beacon for music since his early twenties. In Moving to Higher Ground, he continues to exhort, elevate, and educate us. By distilling his experience and giving insight into the jazz greats, he shares with us his own irrepressible philosophy of music and life.”

–Yo-Yo Ma

“Jazz, for Wynton Marsalis, is nothing less than a search for wisdom. He thinks as forcefully, and as elegantly, as he swings. When he reflects on improvisation, his subject is freedom. When he reflects on harmony, his subject is diversity and conflict and peace. When he reflects on the blues, his subject is sorrow and the mastery of it–how to be happy without being blind. There is philosophy in Marsalis’s trumpet, and in this book. Here is the lucid and probing voice of an uncommonly soulful man.”

–Leon Wieseltier, literary editor, The New Republic

“Wynton Marsalis is absolutely the person who should write this book. Here he is, as young as morning, as fresh as dew, and already called one of the jazz greats. He is not only a seer and an exemplary musician, but a poet as well. ... He has the courage to make powerful music and to love the music so, that he willingly shares its riches with the entire human family. We are indebted to him.”

–Maya Angelou


Photo: Clay McBride

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