The West Virginia Division of Culture and History will continue this season’s Collegiate Series with a concert performance by the West Virginia State University (WVSU) Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Scott E. Woodard, on Tuesday, April 14, at 7 p.m. The performance will take place in the Norman L. Fagan West Virginia State Theater at the Cultural Center, State Capitol Complex in Charleston. The Collegiate Series is free and the public is invited to attend.
The concert will feature a variety of favorites from such composers and lyricists as Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin and Richard Rodgers and will consist of an eclectic mix of jazz standards ranging from crooner’s ballads to funk. The WVSU Jazz Ensemble is made up of students who have a deep and abiding love of the many styles of American jazz music. The students come from various departments throughout the University to rehearse and perform together each Thursday throughout the school year.
Recently the Ensemble was honored with an invitation to perform in three cities in Austria. While there, the group performed in a jazz club in Vienna, in the Franz Lehar Theatre in Bad Ischl and with faculty members of the European Center for Jazz Studies in Graz.
Woodard received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education from Marshall University. He is now a student working for his doctor of musical arts degree at Boston University.
As a teacher, Woodard’s career has spanned more than 20 years. His positions include Wirt County High School, Ceredo-Kenova High School and Winfield High School. Currently, he is director of bands at WVSU where he serves as sponsor of the Collegiate Music Educators National Conference and teaches conducting and secondary music methods courses.
Woodard’s bands have consistently been rated superior at state, regional and national festivals of music and the WVSU Jazz Ensemble performed by invitation in Vienna, Graz and Salzburg, Austria in November 2007. His study of conducting has taken him all over the world as a contestant in workshops and competitions. In 2005, he conducted orchestras of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society in concerts the former Russian capital. The following year he was named first prize winner of the International Conductor’s Workshop Competition and served as guest conductor of the Macon Symphony Orchestra in Macon, Ga.
For more information about the concert performance by the WVSU Jazz Ensemble or the Collegiate Series, contact Jacqueline Proctor, deputy commissioner for the Division, at (304) 558-0220, or call (304) 558-0162 in the evenings.
The Collegiate Series consists of performances and lectures by students and faculty from colleges and universities across the state. First Lady Gayle Manchin hosts the program.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Its administrative offices are located at the Cultural Center in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, which also houses the state archives and state museum. The Cultural Center is West Virginia’s official showcase for the arts. The agency also operates a network of museums and historic sites across the state. For more information about the Division’s programs, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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