Internationally acclaimed jazz violinist and Department of Music, Theatre and Dance artist-in-residence Regina Carter, CAS ’85, will participate in Arts at Noon on Tuesday, Jan. 15 from noon-1 p.m. in the Varner Recital Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
Danny Jordan, special instructor in Jazz, will facilitate a conversation with Carter and also perform with her.
Carter will be on campus Jan. 14-18 as an artist-in-residence. As part of that role, Carter will spend two full weeks exclusively on campus during each academic year to teach master classes and work with students, faculty and ensembles, individually and in groups.
A Grammy nominee and a 2006 recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Carter earned her bachelor’s degree in music from OU in 1985. In 2001, Carter became the first jazz musician and African- American to play “The Cannon,” a 250-year-old Guarneri violin once owned by Niccolo Paganini, which is kept in Genoa, Italy, and only played once a year by an individual deemed worthy.
Carter’s appointment was initiated by Ron Sudol, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Shortly after she received the MacArthur award, Regina invited me to attend her performance at the Birdland jazz club in New York City. I went to Birdland to hear her perform and it blew me away,” Sudol said. “I’d never heard anything like it before, and it was at that moment I knew that we must get her as our artist-in-residence.”
Carter is well known as an innovative musician, a trait that led her to Oakland University more than two decades ago. A native Detroiter, Carter studied at the Center for Creative Studies and the New England Conservatory of Music before transferring to Oakland because she wanted to play jazz on the violin, traditionally a classical instrument.
Sudol explained that OU professor of jazz Marvin “Doc” Holladay, who maintained one of the most innovative and successful jazz programs in the country at the time, gave Carter the opportunity to become the first student to play violin with the jazz band. Although Carter did not play a traditional jazz instrument, Holladay welcomed her into his program and ensembles.
Carter is sharing her expertise with the OU community. During her first week in residence she will get to know OU faculty and students. She is also planning and rehearsing for her first formal concert at OU that will take place in October 2008.
For more information on the Arts at Noon program, call the MTD office at (248) 370-2030.