April 03, 2007 -

Ottawa, Canada -- Described by the Los Angeles Times as “one of the top jazz pianists in the world” and by Jazz Weekly as “the most lyrical piano player of our time,” Kenny Barron will give a jazz masterclass on Wednesday, April 11 in the NAC’s Fourth Stage from noon to 14:00. Admission is free. This is the last of this season’s National Arts Centre “Manhattan on the Rideau” series, which uses broadband videoconferencing to link leading jazz faculty members of the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) with accomplished music students at the National Arts Centre in real time with high fidelity audio and video. The series has been produced by the NAC’s Hexagon Project in association with MSM.

A masterclass is a one-on-one lesson in which a master musician teaches a selected student or ensemble under the watchful eyes of fellow students and members of the public. The audience can learn from the master along with the talented student in the spotlight. Each masterclass involves 2 to 3 students in succession followed by questions-and-answers. The students for the Kenny Barron masterclass will be from the University of Toronto and McGill University in Montreal.

Kenny Barron was born in 1943 and while a teenager, started playing professionally with Mel Melvin’s orchestra. At age 19, he moved to New York City and was hired by James Moody after the tenor saxophonist heard him play at the Five Spot. He joined Dizzy Gillespie’s band in 1962, where he developed an appreciation for Latin and Caribbean rhythms. After five years with Dizzy, Barron played with Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Milt Jackson, and Buddy Rich. In 1971 he joined Yusef Lateef’s band. It is Lateef who Kenny credits as a key influence in his art for improvisation. Kenny Barron’s own recordings for Verve have earned him five Grammy nominations, most recently for Spirit Song in 2000. He consistently wins the jazz critics and readers polls, including Downbeat, JazzTimes and Jazziz magazines. He has been named Best Pianist by the Jazz Journalists Association every year since 1997 and was as a finalist in the prestigious 2001 Jazz Par International Jazz Award.

The NAC’s Hexagon project supports education outreach activities by leveraging next-generation networks like Canada’s CA*net4 (www.canarie.ca) and Internet2 (www.internet2.org) in the United States as well as regional high speed networks throughout the world. The NAC’s broadband infrastructure includes state-of-the-art optical network access in all its performance spaces as well as on-site videoconference and audio-video production facilities. Hexagon projects include tele-mentoring sessions with master teachers in music, theatre and dance.

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For more information please contact:
Jane Morris, Communications Officer,
National Arts Centre Orchestra
613-947-7000, ext. 335
jmorris@nac-cna.ca