Celebration show choir, Jazz Ensemble to perform fall concert

Nov. 11, 2022 | By Kourtnie Stenwall, communication assistant

Northwest Missouri State University’s Jazz Ensemble and Celebration show choir will perform a concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, in the Mary Linn Auditorium at the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts.

The Celebration show choir

Jazz Ensemble

The fall concert will include instrumental music by the Jazz Ensemble as well as song and dance by the Celebration show choir. The groups will combine instruments, song and dance  with a mix of swing and jazz music, Latin tunes and ballads that celebrate American music.

The concert will also feature performances from Dr. Adam Zrust, an assistant professor of music and director of Celebration show choir, and Dr. William Richardson, a professor of music and director of the Jazz Ensemble.

Admission to the concert is free, and it is open to the public.

“There’s a lot of synergy in our department right now,” Richardson said. “We have fine arts faculty doing really great things with our students and the students are working super hard. It will be a really great performance.”

The idea for the combined concert came last spring when Richardson and Zrust were organizing the Department of Fine and Performing Arts’ 2022-23 concert schedule.

“This is something we haven’t done for a while,” Zrust said. “Vocal jazz is something uniquely American, and it’s something we should celebrate and embrace wholeheartedly. It’s going to be fun.”

Celebration is a select ensemble that performs music representing a variety of styles and periods, including choreographed numbers, vocal jazz and ballads. The show choir, which performs year-round, is also known as The Madraliers, a chamber choir that presents concerts on and off campus, including the annual Yuletide Feaste.

The Jazz Ensemble, consisting of 21 music and non-music majors, performs multiple concerts annually in a variety of venues. The ensemble has performed at the Missouri Music Educators Association (MMEA), Nebraska Music Educators Association (NMEA) and the Glenn Miller Festival in Clarinda, Iowa. In 2020, it was named the “Outstanding University Jazz Ensemble” at the University of Kansas Jazz Festival in Lawrence, Kansas.