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Gary Foster Soloist with American Band College Directors' Band June 26
Medford -- Gary Foster, known worldwide for his virtuosity on the saxophone, flute and clarinet, is this year's soloist for the 15th annual American Band College Directors' Band concert at the Ginger Rogers Craterian Theater, 23 S. Central, Medford, on Thursday, June 26,
8 p.m. Entitled Hands Across the Sea, the concert also features guest conductors Johan de Meij from Holland and Francis McBeth from Arkansas.
Tickets are $14 general admission, $11 for seniors and $7 for children.Tickets are available at Cripple Creek Music in downtown Ashland or through the Craterian box office at 541-779-3000.
Foster is well-known as a studio musician in Los Angeles and as a jazz recording artist. He performs regularly in orchestras for major motion pictures and television shows. His television credits include: Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, Love and War, Murder She Wrote, Perry Mason and The Simpsons. Motion picture soundtracks on which he played include: The Nutty Professor, Multiplicity, Matilda, Space Jam, First Wives Club, Mars Attack, The Mirror Has Two Faces, One Fine Day, Batman and Robin, A Bugs Life, Chicago and Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood.
For this work, Foster received the Most Valuable Player award for woodwind doubling from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Foster also is heard on many recordings of top-rated performers such as Kenny Rogers, Mel Torme, Natalie Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Manhattan Transfer, Nina Simone, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Linda Ronstadt, Quincy Jones, Liza Minnelli and Michael Bolton. His most recentrecordings are Make Your Own Fun and Live at Maybeck Hall - Duo with
Alan Broadbent on Concord Jazz and White Heat and One From the Heart with the Jazz at the Movies Band on Discovery.
Guest composer/conductor de Meij studied trombone and conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Music at The Hague. He has earned international fame as a composer and arranger through his original compositions, symphonic transcriptions and arrangements of film scores and musicals. De Meij is best known for his 1989 Sudler Award winning composition entitled "Lord of the Rings," based on Tolkien's novels. In 2001, the orchestral version was premiered by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1999, de Meij's composition "Casanova" was awarded the
First Prize at the International Composition Competition of Corciano [Italy] and a year later, "The Red Tower" won the Oman International Composition. For the Craterian concert, de Meij will conduct several of his compositions including an arrangement based on the European cartoon
character Tin Tin and one entitled "Wind in the Willows."
A past president of American Bandmasters Association, McBeth has appeared as a conductor and lecturer in 48 states plus Australia, Canada, Europe and Japan. Among the many honors and awards McBeth has received are: an ASCAP Special Award each consecutive year from 1965 to
the present, elected Fellow of the American Wind and Percussion Artists by the National Band Association, Kappa Kappa Psi's National Service to Music Award, Mid-West International Band and Orchestra Clinic's Medal ofHonor in 1993, and in 1975, appointed Composer Laureate of the State ofArkansas by the Governor. McBeth has been guest conductor for the American Band College several times.
The American Band College Directors' Bands are comprised of 200 high school and college band directors from around the US and several foreign countries. These band directors come to earn their masters degrees and study with 24 top performers, clinicians, composers and
conductors for two weeks beginning June 21 and concluding July 4. At the end of each of the one-week sessions, the two 100-member bands present a concert with the guest conductors for that week. The July 4
concert takes place at the Ashland High School Football Stadium.
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