OCTOBER 11, 2004 (NEW YORK CITY) – On October 28, 29 and 30, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce unprecedented concerts that explore the struggle for worldwide human rights by uniting the power of masterful jazz composers with acclaimed actors and orators. Let Freedom Swing: A Celebration of Human Rights and Social Justice will feature the words of renowned activists set to original commissioned music performed by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis. This historic program is part of the grand opening festival of the new home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Frederick P. Rose Hall, the first-ever performance, education and broadcast facility devoted to jazz.

These performances are sponsored by Bank of America. The premiere of Let Freedom Swing: A Celebration of Human Rights and Social Justice is made possible with major support from the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Trust for Mutual Understanding.

"Jazz has the power to commemorate, to teach, and to transcend boundaries," said Mr. Marsalis. "Together, these artists will bring to life the essential truths of American democracy – freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of speech. In the halls of Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home, we say, 'Let Freedom Swing'."

Vaclav Havel, a writer, dramatist and leading figure in the Velvet Revolution, was the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. For Jazz at Lincoln Center, he has created an original libretto, adapted from his writings, with a male and female part and that will be paired with the original music of Emil Viklicky. Performing these roles will be husband-and-wife actors, writers, and producers Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

During Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency, he championed peace and fought against segregation. Five-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close will recite from one of President Johnson's most famous speeches, "The American Promise," which he delivered before a 1965 joint session of Congress, with music composed by Jimmy Heath.

Robert F. Kennedy, a champion of civil rights, gave what many considered to be his most significant speech in South Africa on June 7, 1966, during the nation's "Day of Affirmation." Keith David will deliver excerpts from this address with a new musical composition by Darin Atwater.

The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a minister whose bravery, intelligence and unwavering dedication to non-violence pushed our nation to strive for equality, justice and freedom for all Americans, will be delivered by the renowned pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III, human rights activist and president of the State University of New York at Old Westbury. The commissioned musical work of Billy Childs will be featured.

Three-time Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman will recite the words of Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa and winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, whose quest for democracy and human rights continues today. The new musical piece is co-composed by Darius Brubeck and Zim Ngqawana.

A figure of immense moral courage, Eleanor Roosevelt worked tirelessly for social justice and equality. After the death of her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she served as a U.S. representative to the United Nations, where she helped win passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Toshiko Akiyoshi composed the music to accompany Eleanor Roosevelt's writings and the orator will be announced shortly.

"With inspirational events such as Let Freedom Swing, Jazz at Lincoln Center seeks to motivate people all over the world to communicate and understand each other through cultural expression," said Jazz at Lincoln Center Executive Director Derek E. Gordon. "In our new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall, we will combine extraordinary music from our present with powerful words from our past to create an unforgettable celebration of the human spirit."

For information and tickets, please visit the Jazz at Lincoln Center Box Office located on Broadway at 60th Street, call CenterCharge at 212.721.6500 or visit www.jalc.org. Performances begin each night at 8pm in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater located in Frederick P. Rose Hall on Broadway at 60th Street. Tickets are available for $10, $30, $50, $70, $85, $100, $115 and $150.

Jazz at Lincoln Center is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. With the world-renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of performance, education, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, weekly national radio and television programs, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, a jazz appreciation curriculum for children, advanced training through the Julliard Institute for Jazz Studies, music publishing, children's concerts, lectures, adult education courses, film programs, and student and educator workshops. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, President & CEO Hughlyn F. Fierce, Executive Director Derek E. Gordon, Chairman of the Board Lisa Schiff and Jazz at Lincoln Center Board and staff, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce hundreds of events during its 2004-05 season. This is the inaugural season in JALC's new home – Frederick P. Rose Hall – the first-ever performance, education, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz.  

COMPOSER BIOS

Toshiko Akiyoshi
Born in Manchuria, China, Ms. Akiyoshi first heard and began playing jazz when her family moved to Japan. After working as a pianist in a dance hall, she was drawn to Tokyo's active jazz scene, and in 1952, she formed her own group. During his tour of Japan a year later, pianist Oscar Peterson recommended her to Norman Granz, who gave her the chance to make her first recordings with such jazz greats as Herb Ellis and Ray Brown. Shortly after, Ms. Akiyoshi accepted a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She was soon playing regularly at George Wein's Storyville Club and recording for his label with Roy Haynes, Ed Thigpen, Paul Chambers and Oscar Pettiford. In 1956, Wein presented her at his Newport Jazz Festival. In the years since, Ms. Akiyoshi's big band featuring husband/soloist Lew Tabackin has been a driving force in the jazz world, touring and recording to great critical acclaim. In July 1986, Ms. Akiyoshi was the first Japanese New Yorker ever to receive the Mayor's Liberty Award in recognition of her contributions to the quality of life in New York City.

Darin Atwater
Born in Washington, D.C., Mr. Atwater began playing piano at the age of four. After attending Morgan State University where he studied under Dr. Nathan Carter, he continued his studies in composition at the Peabody Institute under Morris Cotel. Mr. Atwater has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony and the American Composers Orchestra, and his work is represented on recording projects by Donnie McClurkin, Richard Smallwood, Yolanda Adams, Donald Lawrence, Shirley Caesar and Karen Clark Sheard among others. Mr. Atwater is the newly appointed composer-in-residence with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and is the founder and artistic director of Soulful Symphony, a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to the preservation of African-American cultural expression and to the presentation of symphonic music representative of diverse genres. Mr. Atwater has been featured on Maryland Public Television and in Emerge and Upscale magazines He was named one of "30 Leaders of the Future" by Ebony magazine.

Darius Brubeck
Darius Brubeck is the director of the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music and professor of jazz studies at the University of Natal, Durban in South Africa. In 1983, he initiated the first degree course in jazz studies offered by an African university. Mr. Brubeck has toured internationally with The New Brubeck Quartet (Dave, Darius, Chris, and Dan Brubeck), and has made TV appearances and recorded for Atlantic Records. In 1989, Mr. Brubeck and Victor Ntoni formed Afro Cool Concept, which has performed in the U.S., Italy, Thailand and Southern Africa, and recently released Still on my Mind for Sheer Sound. Mr. Brubeck has given workshops worldwide and performed in Turkey, Peru and Sweden with university-based bands. Mr. Brubeck has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, which played four of his arrangements as part of a program honoring his father, jazz legend Dave Brubeck, for his 70th and 75th birthdays. In December 2000, he composed a piece especially for his father's 80th birthday concert celebration, which has been released on CD. In 1999, Mr. Brubeck was on a fellowship at the University of Nottingham where he hosted a jazz concert series. He has presented jazz on national radio and has worked for the development of jazz in South Africa as a performer, producer, educator and composer.

Billy Childs
Billy Childs was born in Los Angeles in 1957 to Joseph and Mable Childs, both fervent music lovers. Mr. Childs's solo jazz recording career began in 1988 on the Wyndham Hill Jazz label, and he later recorded for several other labels, including Chick Corea's Stretch Records. He has been nominated for four Grammy Awards since 1996. Mr. Childs has been commissioned twice by the Monterey Jazz Festival and is currently working on the score to Crazy as Hell, an upcoming film directed by Eriq LaSalle, as well as various commissions sponsored by the L. A. Philharmonic, the New Century Chamber Orchestra and the Dorian Wind Quintet, among others. He has recently completed producing the upcoming CD, Rhythm of Life, by Verve recording artist Claudia Acuña. He currently lives in Altadena with his wife and two sons.

Jimmy Heath
Jimmy Heath was born in Philadelphia and began playing alto saxophone at age 14. He has performed on more than 100 recordings, including more than seven with the Heath Brothers and 10 as a leader. During his career, he has written more than 100 compositions, which have been recorded by Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Milt Jackson, Ahmad Jamal, Dexter Gordon and others. He has written numerous suites, quartets and symphonic works, including the ambitious "Afro-American Suite of Evolution" for a 30-piece ensemble. A leader in jazz education, Mr. Heath was also a professor of music and director of the jazz studies faculty at Queens College from 1987 to 1997. Mr. Heath has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Foundation of America; the Carter Woodson Foundation Award; the Living Legends of Jazz Award from the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum in Philadelphia; appointment to the board of trustees of the Thelonious Monk Institute and its Founders Award; the Queens College President's Medal; and an invitation to perform at the White House. He has performed on several Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts, including a premiere of his commission for big band in August 1994, James Moody's 75th Birthday Concert in April 2000, and most recently as a guest performer in the inaugural induction ceremony for Jazz at Lincoln Center's Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

Zim Ngqawana
Born in 1959 in Port Elizabeth in South Africa's Eastern Cape, Zim Ngqawana is one of a new generation of South African musicians who are taking a fresh look at South Africa's jazz and traditional music heritage. Mr. Ngqawana, who started playing the flute at the age of 21, made his mark at the historic inauguration of President Nelson Mandela in 1994, where he directed the 100-person "Drums for Peace Orchestra." Although Mr. Ngqawana was forced to drop out of school before completing university entrance requirements, his academic prowess won him a place at Rhodes University ADD COMMA and he went on to study for a diploma in Jazz Studies at the University of Natal. Working with the University's ensemble, "The Jazzanians", he attended the International Association of Jazz Educators convention in the United States and was offered several scholarships including one to the University of Massachusetts, where he studied with jazz legends Archie Shepp and Yusef Lateef. Since his return to South Africa in the 1990's, he has worked in the bands of veteran greats like Abdullah Ibrahim and Hugh Masekela. Mr. Ngqawana is committed to developing and creating an audience for new South African jazz, and his music draws on influences ranging from South Africa's folk and rural traditions to Indian and western classical music, world music and the avant-garde. He has led groups ranging in size from quartet to orchestra, and he has worked with such groups as the Free Flight Dance Company and the Moving Into Dance Company. In 1995, he toured the United States with his band Ingoma and appeared at the historic Black History Week in Chicago. Mr. Ngqawana has toured America, Africa and Europe and has played with greats including Max Roach, Keith Tippett, Dennis Mpale, Andile Yenana, Herbie Tsoaeli, Kevin Gibson, Valerie Naranjo, Bjorn Ole Solburg and his San Ensemble.

Emil Viklicky
Emil Viklicky was born in 1948 in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia. While studying mathematics at Palacky University, he devoted much time to playing jazz piano. In 1974, he was awarded the prize for best soloist at the Czechoslovak Amateur Jazz Festival and became a member of Karel Velebny's SHQ ensemble. In 1977, he was awarded a scholarship to study composition and arrangement with Herb Pomeroy at the jazz school of the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He continued his composition studies with Jarmo Sermila, George Crumb and Vaclav Kucera. Since his return to Prague, he has been directing his own ensembles (primarily quartets and quintets), composing and arranging music, and working as director of the Summer Jazz Workshops in Frydlant. Throughout the 1990s, Mr. Viklicky worked on compositions of contemporary classical music for a great variety of instrumental combinations ranging from small chamber ensembles and electronic instruments to symphony orchestras and choruses. From 1991 to 1995, Viklicky served as president of the Czech Jazz Society Since. 1994, he has worked with the Ad Lib Moravia ensemble, whose performances combine elements of Moravian folk music, modern jazz and contemporary serious music. As a composer, Mr. Viklicky has created a synthesis of the expressive elements of modern jazz with the melodic and tonal qualities of Moravian folk song that is distinctly individual in contemporary jazz. He also composes modern jazz as well as chamber and orchestral works that utilize certain elements of the New Music. In addition, he composes incidental and film music and has produced scores for several full-length feature films and television series.  

Bank of America is the proud presenting sponsor of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Season sponsors for Jazz at Lincoln Center's inaugural season in
Frederick P. Rose Hall are: Altria Group, The Coca-Cola Company, Samsung Electronics America and Time Warner Inc.

For more information on JALC, please visit www.jalc.org.