New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The Delaware Valley Wind Symphony and The Philadelphia Saxophone Quartet will perform a concert honoring their co-founder, Jerry Nowak (1936-2015), at the Mildred and Ernest E. Mayo Concert Hall at The College of New Jersey on Saturday, March 4, 2017, at 3:00 pm. Ticket sales will benefit the Jerry Nowak Scholarship Fund.
The concert will feature compositions and arrangements by Mr. Nowak, including the U.S. debut of his final composition, Suite for Three Graces, commissioned by the
Sunshine Coast Youth Orchestra of Queensland, Australia and dedicated to his three granddaughters.
David Osenberg,
Music Director for WWFM, The Classical Network, 89.1 FM, will host the event.
Seating is general admission, and tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for TCNJ staff, and free for students and children. Tickets from TCNJ Center for the Arts are available online at tcnj.edu/cfa, by phone at 609-771-2775, and at the box office. To make a tax-deductible donation to the Jerry Nowak Scholarship Fund, visit delvalwinds.org/donations or mail your check, payable to the Delaware Valley Wind Symphony, to P.O. Box 566, Langhorne, PA 19047.
The symphony and Nowak family are grateful to TCNJ for donating use of the concert hall for this fund-raising event honoring Jerry, who was a proud alumnus and first recipient of the TCNJ Distinguished
Music Alumni Award.
Mr. Nowak achieved an international following as a prolific arranger, composer, conductor and professor who influenced thousands of musicians and teachers.
He began his writing career in the early 1970s as an arranger for Paul Simon's publishing company, Charing Cross Music. He went on to publish over 1,100 pieces for youth and professional ensembles, including works for concert band, jazz band, marching band and choral, making him one of the most widely published musicians of his generation.
Mr. Nowak was also known for his innovations in the techniques and teaching of conducting and expressive phrasing. With his brother, Henry Nowak, he co-authored two college textbooks published by Carl Fischer, Conducting the Music, Not the Musicians, and The Art of Expressive Playing, the latter being the first comprehensive textbook on expressive performance. He taught graduate level courses and lectured at universities throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Mr. Nowak was an adjunct professor at The University of the Arts on the campus of Villanova University for twenty years, and was an adjunct professor at TCNJ as recently as 2013. In 2014 Mr. Nowak completed his 30th consecutive season of teaching at the Jerry Nowak Summer Conducting School in Sydney, at the invitation of the Australian Band and Orchestra Director's Association (ABODA) in New South Wales. He also taught at the summer school of Melbourne Youth
Music for 26 seasons. His teaching career began at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, NJ, where he taught from 1959 to 1969. Thereafter he spent 36 years at Bucks County Community College in Newtown, PA, where he retired as Professor Emeritus of Music.
He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Saxophone Quartet and New Jersey Saxophone Quartet, and contributed arrangements to the repertoire for each ensemble. Mr. Nowak was the
Music Director of the Delaware Valley Wind Symphony, and appeared as a guest conductor with ensembles throughout the U.S. He also worked as a woodwind player and session singer in New York and Philadelphia, touring with a diverse range of singers and ensembles, including Burt Bacharach and
Stevie Wonder among many others.
Mr. Nowak achieved a Bachelor of Science in
Music Education and Master of
Music Composition from TCNJ, formerly Trenton
State College. His renowned teachers included Lucien Cailliet, arranger for the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy, clarinetist Charles Russo, and Herbert Pate and
Dr. John Finley Williamson of Westminster Choir College.
Co-founded by Jerry Nowak in 2006, the Delaware Valley Wind Symphony is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization (federal tax ID 20-5501340) dedicated to the preservation and advancement of concert band music in our community through the highest level of musical performance. Led by
Music Director, Steven Sweetsir, this fifty-piece ensemble performs traditional concert band music and concert band adaptations of orchestral music, including modern and pop arrangements. To learn more please visit delvalwinds.org.
Formed in 1968 by Jerry Nowak, Bill Holcombe, Harold Karabell, and Norman Wells, its repertoire includes classical, folk and jazz. The quartet has been featured with the Rhode Island Symphony, Springfield Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Buffalo Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Maryland Symphony, Virginia Symphony, and Trenton Symphony, among others. Its current lineup includes John Bachallis, Kathy Mitchell,
Director of Saxophone Ensemble at TCNJ, Warren Fioretti of the Harry
James Orchestra, and TCNJ graduate, Drew Wierzbowski. For more information please visit philadelphiasaxquartet.com.
