2020 John Moawad Jazz Festival

The 2020 CWU Jazz Festival is canceled due to the COVID-19 situation. We hope you will join us in 2021! The dates are Friday-Saturday, May 7-8, 2021. Note that this is a week earlier than usual due to some scheduling tweaks here on campus. We plan to have Christine Jensen with us for 2021!

CWU Jazz is proud to announce Christine Jensen, 2021 Jazz Festival Guest Artist

Montreal-based saxophonist and composer Christine Jensen has been described as, “an original voice on the international jazz scene… [and] one of Canada’s most compelling composers,” by Mark Miller of the Globe and Mail. According to Greg Buium of Downbeat Magazine, “Jensen writes in three dimensions, with a quiet kind of authority that makes the many elements cohere. Wayne Shorter, Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler come to mind.” After a performance at the 2006 Montreal International Jazz Festival, Scott Yanow wrote, “She’s rapidly developing into a major force … as a player and as a writer.”

Jensen is equally at home performing in small and large ensemble settings. Her latest opus, Treelines - The Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra on Justin-Time Records, won her the 2011 Juno Award for Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year, along with Quebec’s Opus Award for jazz recording of the year. Downbeat magazine described it as“…a stunning orchestral debut… ****1/2 stars”. She recently performed at various jazz festivals across Canada as well as at Dizzy’s Jazz Club-Lincoln Center in New York with this ensemble. “Jensen’s formidable orchestra is the glistening sunlight, the tranquility and force of the ocean, and the majestic trees that her music imagines.”-Jazz Times 

2020 Clinicians

Paul Harshman: Hamilton MS (Seattle) and Univ. of WA
Susie Jones: Mt. Hood CC (retired)
Cynthia Plank: Beaumont MS (Portland)
Collin Wilson: Columbia Basin College
Dan Davey: Mt. Hood CC
Jim Sisko: Bellevue College (tentative)
 

The John Moawad Invitational Jazz Festival is open to all college, high school and middle school jazz bands. For all of the details, please check out our Festival Information page.

For more information:

Festival Director
Chris Bruya
509-963-1426
christopher.bruya@cwu.edu