CWU To Present The 'Jazz Nutcracker'

November 23, 2004

Contact: Chris Bruya (509-963-1426/fax 509-963-1239/e-mail: bruyac@gwmail.cwu.edu)

ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Tchaikovsky completed "The Nutcracker" in 1892. It's likely he ever contemplated his work being presented as a jazz piece, but Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn rearranged the work into the "Jazz Nutcracker," which will be performed at Central Washington University on Sunday, Dec. 5.

The new arrangement was first performed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1960, and is considered one of the most ambitious tasks undertaken by Ellington and Strayhorn.

"Ellington and Strayhorn actually recomposed the ballet, creating music that is definitely jazz, the result being much more than an overlay of a jazz beat," Chris Bruya, CWU director of jazz studies, says.

Ellington is respected as one of the greatest writers for jazz woodwind and brass.

"What listeners will find is that the music is familiar, yet adds new and surprising twists to our expectations," Bruya notes.

The university's Jazz Band 1, under Bruya's direction, will perform the renamed movements in the Christmas classic, such as "Toot Toot Tootie Toot" and "Sugar Rum Cherry."

The performance of the Jazz Nutcracker - the second consecutive year the CWU jazz band has performed it -- is slated for 3 p.m. in the new music building concert hall on the Ellensburg campus.

Tickets are $10 general admission, $8 seniors and $5 students, with proceeds to benefit next summer's CWU jazz band European tour to perform at the Montreux and North Sea Jazz festivals.

For more information, or for persons of disability to arrange for reasonable accommodation, call (509) 963-1426, or (for the hearing impaired) TDD (509) 963-2143.