It is always inspiring to hear what our talented faculty are up to when they are not in the classroom molding musical minds. Below is a snapshot.
Justin Gray’s band Monsoon recently released a double-live CD Toronto Indo-Jazz Festival (www.Monsoon-Music.com). Justin himself is the recent recipient of a Toronto Arts Council Grant in support of his Indo-Jazz compositions that will be written specifically for solo bass (www.justin-gray.com).
Mark Promane is playing clarinet and saxophone in the pit orchestra for “The Wizard of Oz,” which is enjoying an open-ended run at the Ed Mirvish Theatre.
Vaughan Misener has recently put out a live duo performance with pianist (and fellow Humber faculty member)Dave Restivo as an iTunes release (The Duo Concert, Vaughan Misener and David Restivo Live at Musideum:https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/duo-concert-vaughan-misener/id583359109). Vaughan continues to lead an active performance schedule around the Toronto area that includes performances with Humber faculty and alumni alike.
Shelly Berger co-produced and arranged (for an 80 piece orchestra) the new Matt Dusk CD entitled My Funny Valentine: The Song Book Of Chet Baker that features trumpet great Arturo Sandoval. In addition, Berger arranged music for the new CD by jazz clarinetist Dave Bennett Running Wild (Mack Avenue Records).
Dave Dunlop happily reported a busy end to the 2012 year, that found him performing with Elton John, Frankie Valli, on the CBC television show “Over the Rainbow” and on a seven-week run with Ross Petty’s production of “Snow White.”
Mark Shannon is continuing to demonstrate why he is an in-demand producer, completing albums for singer-songwriters Donna O’Connor and Jennifer Moore (in the adult pop and new music genres respectively), working on a guitar based Jazz Fusion recording with Richard Smyth and developing the children’s YouTube entertainment channel kidslove2learn, which recently surpassed 100, 000 hits (www.markshannon.ca).
Paul Novotny is enjoying a good start to 2013 through his association with singer/songwriter Barbra Lica, a musician whom he discovered and whose debut album That’s What I Do, he both produced and released on his co-owned label Triplet Records (www.tripletrecords.com).