For those of you who are fans of jazz and/or percussion, there will be a faculty concert this Wednesday in Moss Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. Darin Kamstra, director of jazz studies and percussion at Colorado Mesa University, will be performing several pieces of music that came together to form his sabbatical project, in which he focused on studying and practicing the jazz vibraphone.
The jazz vibraphone is a keyboard percussion instrument, similar to a piano in the sense that it has a sustain pedal to control note length, and it also has metal bars like a xylophone. The recital will feature seven memorized jazz tunes with Dr. Kamstra on the vibraphone, Tim Fox on piano and trumpet, Tim Emmons on bass and Rob Labig on drums. Kamstra will also be playing an original piece called “Golden Anniversary”, which he dedicated to his parents for their 50th wedding anniversary.
“I wanted to focus on my melodic jazz skills, which translate more directly to all the jazz students I teach,” Kamstra said.
Kamstra teaches saxophone, trombone and trumpet players in lessons and jazz ensembles. In addition to jazz, he also teaches a percussion ensemble, percussion lessons, percussion pedagogy and advanced music technology. He serves as the principal timpanist/percussionist of the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra and plays the drumset in the Grand Junction Rockestra and the CMU Faculty Jazz Quintet.
The opportunity to see a live, professional jazz percussion performance is a rarity, and the university is lucky to have professors at CMU like Kamstra who want to open eyes to styles of music that most college students are unaware of.
Jazz is a style that we have all heard in one form or another, but Kamstra has discovered it in a whole new way.
“Jazz music was born in America and is now a worldwide style that has influenced many other types of music,” Kamstra said. “Most aspects of jazz are improvised, meaning we do not know how things are going to sound until we actually perform them, so it is a style that is best experienced in person to hear and see the interaction between the musicians.”
The concert will expose students to a familiar style of music performed in a unique way. Students, faculty and community are all welcome in the Moss Performing Arts building to catch this performance at 7:30 p.m.
