Roberts Wesleyan College Music
Degrees and Programs
Jazz Studies and Performance at RWC
Performance Opportunities:
For those students who are interested in Jazz studies and performance at the college level, Roberts offers performance opportunities in the Roberts Jazz Ensemble, small jazz combos, Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and solo jazz vocals. The Roberts Jazz Ensemble performs one major concert each semester, in addition to several off-campus performances. Jazz combos perform several times each semester, at music seminars, social events, and the highly popular “Jazz and Dessert” concert held on a Friday and Saturday evening each semester. The jazz vocalists are also featured at “Jazz and Dessert.” “The Great American Songbook” recital is held each semester and features the jazz vocalists in performance with top professional jazz musicians from the Rochester area. The Vocal Jazz Ensemble performs on several majors concerts each year.
Courses in Jazz Theory, Improvisation, and Performance:
History of Jazz
Applied Improvisation lessons (keyboard, instrumental, vocal)
Jazz Theory and Improvisation
Jazz Composition and Arranging
Jazz combos
Vocal Jazz Ensemble
Roberts Jazz Ensemble
About the jazz faculty:
Russell Scarbrough is a composer and trombonist whose music has been performed by university jazz ensembles, the Bemus Pops Orchestra, and the US Army Blues in Washington, DC. His principal teachers have been Hank Levy and Bill Dobbins in composition, and John Gifford, John Melick, Wayne Wells, Harry Watters, and Mark Kellogg in trombone. Scarbrough directs his own 18-piece big band, featuring his own new jazz ensemble compositions and those commissioned from young composers in the Rochester area. In 2004 he was awarded the Raymond and Maxine Schirmer Prize in Jazz Composition. In September 2005, Russell Scarbrough became the first recipient of the "Billy Joel Scholarship" award at Eastman. This competitive scholarship, established with a major grant given to the school by pop icon Billy Joel, will be awarded annually to a doctoral student in jazz. In receiving this award, Scarbrough composed a major new work, a 28-minute, three movement Concerto Grosso for Jazz Quintet and Orchestra,
Mike Van Allen, piano, bass, vocal jazz. His principal teacher at NYU was Grammy winning arranger and composer Jim McNeely, pianist for the world renowned Village Vanguard Orchestra. Other teachers that Mike worked with at NYU include such jazz greats as pianists Mike Holober, Don Friedman, Ted Rosenthal, Michael Weiss, and Pete Malinverni, bassists Ron McClure and Mike Richmond, and saxophonists Ralph LaLamma and Jon Gunther. He formed his own jazz quintet which recorded an album in 2001 and was performed live on Rochester’s jazz radio station, 90.1fm. During this time Mike also began directing and arranging for a cappella groups, winning national awards for best arrangement of a song in 2002 and runner-up for best collegiate arranged album in 1999, the Binghamton Crosbys’ “Super Bo’s”. Mike performs frequently, playing both piano and/or bass with such groups as the Rodger Eckers quartet, the Brad Batz group, Fishbone Soup, and a jazz fusion project.
