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westernoregonuniversity.info

 

Jazz Studies

category: Music Department, 

 


Western Oregon University features a unique music department that places strong emphasis on contemporary music. To this end, it boasts a vibrant jazz studies program and many feel this is the best jazz school in the northwest. The three key components of jazz studies curriculum are proficiency on the instrument (or voice), an ability to improvise in multiple musical "languages," and the opportunity to compose or arrange original works. Students may choose to focus their degree either on performance or composition and arranging.


The faculty at Western Oregon University includes luminaries such as saxophonist Dr. Tom Bergeron and trombonist Dr. Keller Coker, and equally distinguished adjuncts Christopher Woitach on guitar, Gordon Lee on piano, and Mel Brown on drums. WOU provides private school quality in a public school setting.


Training begins in the first-year music theory class, where all music majors learn about chordal functions and musical structure by analyzing standard jazz tunes instead of the typical Bach chorales. Subsequent classes for those pursuing jazz studies include jazz theory, jazz arranging, and a year-long improvisation course. Music since 1950 is a required portion of the Western music history sequence, and seminar classes on the music of specific twentieth-century decades since are frequently offered. A business of music class gives students the tools to design and successfully pursue a musical career after graduation from Western.


Students may participate in a diverse array of ensembles. The Western Hemisphere Orchestra big band performs quarterly in Western's Rice Auditorium; each show features a different guest artist and theme, ranging from ragtime to Brazilian to Motown. The Western Hemisphere Combo plays new music written and arranged by Western students and faculty, while the Jazz Rep Combo performs more traditional standards. Brazilian Combo offers students a chance to become familiar with delightful choros. Vocalists may choose to join the jazz choir Soulstice, which frequently travels to participate in competitions. Of course, there are plenty of opportunities for students to join forces with each other in their own groups and seek gigs at on- or off-campus venues.


Western professors and students alike recognize that "jazz" encompasses a wide variety of music, and the environment they have created does not give preference of one kind of musical expression over another. On the contrary, professors foster versatility by encouraging students to immerse themselves in a number of styles.



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