By Sam Turner |
Staff writer
Augusta University kicked off the spring semester with a Lyceum Series featuring Grammy-nominated jazz artist, Branford Marsalis on Jan. 16.
The Lyceum Series was designed by Wingate and is a program that is meant to expose college students to ideas and opportunities they may not have in the classrooms.
The Lyceum Series at Augusta University will include different concerts put on by the Department of Music, as well as different plays.
The Augusta University Department of Music welcomed Branford Marsalis to campus for a public Q&A session. The Q&A session was held in the Maxwell Theatre at noon.
Later that evening, Marsalis performed with the Branford Marsalis Quartet and special guest, Augusta University professor, Wycliffe Gordon.
Wycliffe Gordon, friend of Marsalis, hosted the Q&A session by engaging Marsalis with questions that talked a little about his career and points of view about music. Later in the session, audience members had a chance to ask Marsalis a question.
Marsalis kept the audience on their toes by telling different, but blunt stories about performing with Sting and the Grateful Dead as well as answering the impending question, “Why jazz?”
“I don’t know…I’ve chosen other genres. I started out as an R&B sax section, I was gonna move to L.A. and join one of the bands and do the whole thing. Turned 19 and went ‘I don’t know’,” Marsalis explained.
“We aren’t going to the drawing board and writing chords. I love playing jazz. I love the sound of it, I love the creativity of it. I can’t imagine being sixty years old and having a career in popular music right now and to that effect, I wouldn’t. In popular music, if you aren’t in the foreground, you’re in the background. In jazz, we’re all in the background so we’re all in the foreground.”
The next Lyceum Series event that Maxwell Theatre will host is “A Scythe of Time”. The first performance will be on Thursday, Feb. 13. To find more information about the Augusta University Lyceum Series, upcoming events presented by the AU Music Department or to purchase tickets, visit http://www.augusta.edu/maxwelltheater/schedule.php.
Contact Sam Turner at SATURNER@augusta.edu
The Bell Ringer 