2024 Membership & Jazz Appreciation Month Concert

DON BRADEN QUARTET, Friday, April 26th, 7:30 PM, SUNY Schenectady County Community College

For over three decades, since our founding in 1987 by the late, great Butch Conn, A Place for Jazz has provided our community with an outstanding annual series of concerts, featuring some of the world’s greatest jazz musicians. As a volunteer community-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, A Place for Jazz also provides educational workshops, school-based clinics, scholarships for students engaged in college level jazz studies, and a calendar of events supporting Jazz and its musicians in the Capital District and beyond.

 We are a Volunteer Membership Community

Your Membership in A Place for Jazz allows us to attract outstanding musicians, keep our concerts affordable, address the immediate need to schedule our upcoming season and meet other costs associated with our concerts.  Arrangements for our fall series begin in January, well in advance of the concerts themselves. To assure the quality of your experience at A Place for Jazz, we have already selected potential artists for the coming season and need to commit significant funds for their contracts.

 Your Bonus for Joining Now!

Click here for our Membership Application, which contains our membership levels and associated benefits of joining our volunteer membership community. Because of our non-profit status, any donation above and beyond the value of our regular season tickets is tax deductible.

As an ADDED BONUS, everyone who makes their Membership at the amount of $125.00 or more by April 1  will receive 1 free ticket to a Special Jazz Appreciation Month Concert featuring The Don Braden Quartet  on Friday, April 26, at 7:30 pm, at the SUNY Schenectady County Community College Carl B. Taylor Auditorium. Separate $25.00 tickets can be purchased at the door. This is a concert that you will not want to miss!

Your support is keeping A Place for Jazz an accessible asset to the performing arts and education offerings in our community!

With gratitude and appreciation,
A Place for Jazz

Jazz veteran saxophonist, flutist, composer, and educator Don Braden’s exciting quartet will be performing at A Place for Jazz on April 26! They will present Don’s latest Contemporary Standards repertoire, featuring “Earth Wind and Wonder”: unique, modern jazz arrangements of hits from Earth Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder — plus dynamic original songs. Braden’s highly acclaimed 24th CD release Earth Wind and Wonder Volume 2 was on the JazzWeek National Radio Chart top-50 for 22 weeks, reached #1, and was #8 most played album for all of 2023.

Come out and enjoy this beautiful space, and creative, grooving music!

How to get to the concerts:

SUNY Schenectady Map1

Park where indicated, then follow the yellow arrows past the fountain to the auditorium.

Read Michael Hochanadel’s review of the Emmet Cohen Trio concert on 10/20/23.

Read Michael Hochanadel’s review of the BWC Jazz Orchestra concert on 9/22/23.

Read Michael Hochanadel’s review of the Peg Delaney Big Band concert on 11/4/22.

SUNY Schenectady School of Music High School Jazz Competition results

A Place For Jazz congratulates the winners of the first ever SUNY Schenectady School of Music High School Jazz Competition!

 

First Place – Kiemon Noel, drums
Second Place – Nathan Yan, saxophone
Third Place – Bohdan Kinal, saxophone

The competition featured celebrity guest judges, jazz artists Geoffrey Keezer and Gillian Margot.

The grand prize that Kiemon won will be a recording session with the SUNY Schenectady jazz faculty in March 2023, and all three prize winners will be featured soloists with the SUNY Schenectady Jazz Ensemble at its spring concert on May 3, 2023. Dr. Christopher Brellochs, Dean of the School of Music, further advises that any finalist that attends the SUNY Schenectady School of Music will also receive a $1,000 scholarship. SUNY Schenectady is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music.

Congratulations to the winners, the SUNY Schenectady School of Music on its inaugural high school jazz competition, and to Ron and Kathy Cooke for underwriting the Music Innovation Fund at SUNY Schenectady!

What is A Place for Jazz?

A Place for Jazz isn’t really a place; it’s a 501(c)(3) non-profit, all-volunteer  organization dedicated to presenting the best in Jazz. It was founded by Butch Conn in 1987. Programs include concerts, public workshops, school-based clinics, a Jazz website and general support of Jazz and its musicians.