nancy hanks lecture

Wynton Marsalis
Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center

Monday, March 30, 2009
Concert Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC





Pulitzer Prize-winning Wynton Marsalis is the Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center as well as Music Director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and world-renowned trumpeter and composer. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961, Mr. Marsalis began his classical training on trumpet at age 12, he entered The Juilliard School at age 17 and joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Mr. Marsalis made his recording debut as a leader in 1982, and since has recorded more than 30 jazz and classical recordings, which have won him nine GRAMMY® Awards. In 1983, he became the first and only artist to win both classical and jazz GRAMMYs®  in the same year and repeated this feat in 1984. Mr. Marsalis is also an internationally respected teacher and spokesman for music education, and has received honorary doctorates from dozens of universities and colleges throughout the U.S. He conducts educational programs for students of all ages and hosts the popular Jazz for Young People(SM) concerts produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Mr. Marsalis has also written four books: Sweet Swing Blues on the Road in collaboration with photographer Frank Stewart, Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life with Carl Vigeland and recently released To a Young Musician: Letters from the Road with Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, published by Random House in 2004. In October 2005, Candlewick Press released Marsalis's Jazz ABZ, an A to Z collection of 26 poems celebrating jazz greats, illustrated by poster artist Paul Rogers. In 2008, he wrote Moving to Higher Ground:  How Jazz Can Change Your Life with Geoffrey C. Ward and published by Random House. In 2001, Mr. Marsalis was appointed Messenger of Peace by Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and he has also been designated cultural ambassador to the United States of America by the U.S. State Department through their CultureConnect program.  Mr. Marsalis was instrumental in the Higher Ground Hurricane Relief concert, produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center, which has raised over $3 million for the Higher Ground Relief Fund to benefit the musicians, music industry related enterprises and other individuals and entities from the areas in Greater New Orleans who were impacted by Hurricane Katrina.  He helped lead the effort to construct Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home – Frederick P. Rose Hall – the first education, performance, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz, which opened in October 2004.  Wynton Marsalis is published by arrangement with Skayne’s Music Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., Sole Agent.