Kids Jazz Exploration & Magical Concert
Madison Children's Museum 100 N. Hamilton St., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Gregory Bleck
Laurie Lang & John Becker.
Scheduling issues for the 31st annual festival required a change of dates, and organizers seized the opportunity to expand the former two-day event into a 10-day extravaganza with 27 different performances and events at various locations throughout Madison. This year’s focus will be on local and regional acts. There are a number of acts on the Memorial Union Terrace, a State Street “jazz stroll,” a concert highlighting jazz’s gospel roots, and another honoring women’s contributions to the genre. There’s also a world premiere from saxophonist Hanah Jon Taylor, Songs for the Emerging Man. Details: isthmusjazzfestival.com.
press release: A jazz trio concert for kids will be performed by John Becker, Laurie Lang and Chris Wagoner. Laced with short stories about jazz history, funny introductions to songs and instruments with some musical magic tricks. The show will include songs like “Over the Rainbow,” “What a Wonderful World” and “My Favorite Things,” and will encourage kids to sing along, while featuring several students from various jazz school residencies. This event is part of Madison Children’s Museum’s annual SummerPalooza.
Bios:
Laurie Lang is a jazz bass violinist, composer, arranger, educator and producer. Her creative approach allows her sound to reach its musical depths, as her instrument becomes her voice. Laurie loves performing all kinds of jazz: from traditional New Orleans, to Basie big band, to hard bop, avant-garde/free jazz, and also blending a variety of styles ideas while progressing the music forward.
Currently, Laurie enjoys taking on musical projects that build community.
As a bass violinist, she regularly rehearses and performs with John Becker & Sally de Broux; Jim Erickson & Jan Wheaton groups, Joan Wildman, Becca May Grant & the Rivers of Madison, and Stan Godfriaux.
As a jazz educator and clinician, she actively is implementing jazz residencies in area schools: Whitehorse Middle School Strings, Stephens Elementary, Sauk Trail Elementary, Middleton High School and Sun Prairie High School.
As a producer, she is assembling two collaborative pieces with local artists using projected visuals, film, dance and music speaking to human justice.
Over the past two decades, Laurie has been involved in Madison’s creative music scene cultivating creativity through founding and directing the Improvisational Music Workshop, an experimental environment, bringing together jazz enthusiasts and jazz musicians at various levels to experience, to explore and to learn more about the art of ensemble music making and improvisation.
Administratively, she has also served on the board of the Madison Music Collective, a local organization that promotes modern jazz and improvisational music. The MMC has helped bring a variety of national jazz artists to the Madison area. Laurie acted as a liaison and an accompanying musician for various schools and community centers for educational outreach with Rhiannon, Mary Stallings, Tia Fuller, Laurence Hobgood, Carmen Lundy and Ingrid Jensen. Laurie currently serves on the board of the Madison Jazz Society, which promotes jazz with an emphasis on traditional jazz and swing styles, and supports jazz education through its School Grants and Jazz Residency programs.
A leader in Dane County’s musician community, string musician (violin and mandolin) and educator Chris Wagoner was an original member of Harmonious Wail and The Moon Gypsies. He currently performs as a duo with Mary Gaines as The Stellanovas, and leads the bluegrass-classical ensemble Graminy. Chris served as president of Madison Music Collective for five years and previously chaired the Collective’s Program Committee. A masterful interviewer of musicians, Chris co-produced and co-hosted the WORT-FM program Mad Toast Live, for which he developed the format of infusing lively interviews with the performers into the evening’s concert. This engaging format was subsequently incorporated into the Music Collective’s successful “Jazz on a Sunday” concert series, for which Chris served as MC and interviewer.