Celebrity Series of Boston Present THE SPRING QUARTET, 3/6

Celebrity Series of Boston will present jazz ensemble The Spring Quartet on Thursday, March 6, 2014, at 8:00pm at Sanders Theatre, Memorial Hall, Harvard University, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. This performance is sponsored by Amy and Joshua Boger and Tufts Health Plan.

Tickets for The Spring Quartet start at $30, and are available online at www.celebrityseries.org, by calling CelebrityCharge at (617) 482-6661 Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m., or at the Harvard Box Office, Holyoke Center, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge.

This is the debut performance with the Celebrity Series of Boston for members Jack DeJohnette and Leo Genovese. Joe Lovano first appeared in the Series in 1996, again in 2006, and this season as part of the Wayne Shorter 80th Birthday Celebration with Esperanza Spalding.

Studying the vibrant history of modern music, not just jazz alone, you'd be hard pressed to find a major name that Jack DeJohnette, Leo Genovese, Joe Lovano, and Esperanza Spalding are not connected to, whether it be on recordings, performances or collaborations. To have these musicians perform in a modern multigenerational project that showcases the linear path from the beginning source to the future of the lauded jazz idiom, is a show in itself.

In a career that spans five decades and includes collaborations with some of the most iconic figures in modern jazz, NEA Jazz Master and Grammy Award winner Jack DeJohnette has established an unchallenged reputation as one of the greatest drummers in the history of the genre. The list of creative associations throughout his career is lengthy and diverse: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Keith Jarrett, Chet Baker, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Joe Henderson, Freddy Hubbard, Betty Carter and more. Along the way, he has developed a versatility that allows room for hard bop, R&B, world music, avant-garde, and just about every other style to emerge in the past half-century.

Grammy Award winning saxophonist Joe Lovano has distinguished himself for three decades as a force in creative music through his conceptual and thematic choices within the jazz idiom. In recent years, Lovano has spent a good deal of time collaborating, both in the studio and the concert hall, with two other tenor saxophonists, Dave Liebman and the late Michael Brecker in the collective Saxophone Summit. Since 2009, Lovano's main vehicle for his exploration has been 'Us Five' a dynamic young band - which features drummers Otis Brown III and Francisco Mela, bassist Esperanza Spalding, and pianist James Weidman.

Bassist Esperanza Spalding was one of the biggest breakout stars of 2011 with the receipt of the Grammy for Best New Artist Award. It was unprecedented-the first time a jazz musician had won the award. In addition to over 110 Chamber Music Society concerts, she still finds time to tour with Joe Lovano's 'US 5,' perform at Rock In Rio with Milton Nascimento, play at Prince's "Welcome 2 America" tour and join Wayne Shorter in celebrating Herbie Hancock's 70th birthday at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Her latest recording, Radio Music Society, includes a mosaic array of musicians; jazz legends Joe Lovano, Jack DeJohnette and Billy Hart; hip-hop giant Q-Tip, Algebra Blessett, Lalah Hathaway, Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke; Portland mentors Janice Scroggins and Thara Memory, as well as the horn section of Memory's American Music Program ensemble.

Pianist Leo Genovese was born in Venado Tuerto, Argentina in the 1970s. After studying classical and contemporary music in his homeland, he moved to Boston to study jazz. He currently leads a band called The Chromatic Gauchos, a powerful avant-garde ensemble, and is a co-founder of the group The Sewer Ratz, a band that chases the non-playing music practice.

About Celebrity Series of Boston

Celebrity Series of Boston was founded in 1938 by pianist and impresario Aaron Richmond. Over the course of its 75-year history, Celebrity Series has presented an array of the world's greatest performing artists, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arturo Toscanini, Ignace Paderewski, Artur Rubenstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Andrés Segovia, Kirsten Flagstad, Marian Anderson, Luciano Pavarotti, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Martha Graham, Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the New York City Opera Company.

The Celebrity Series has been bringing the very best performers-from orchestras and chamber ensembles, vocal and piano music, to dance companies, jazz, and more-to Boston's major concert halls for 75 years. The Celebrity Series of Boston believes in the power of excellence and innovation in the performing arts to enrich life experiences, transform lives and build better communities. Through its education initiatives, the Celebrity Series seeks to build a community of Greater Boston where the performing arts are a valued, lifelong, shared experience-on stages, in schools, at home- everywhere. For more information on Celebrity Series of Boston, call (617) 482-2595 or visit us online at www.celebrityseries.org.

The Celebrity Series of Boston, Inc. receives generous support from Amy and Joshua Boger; Eleanor and Frank Pao; Donna and Mike Egan; Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation; The Little Family Foundation; Tufts Health Plan; Foley & Lardner LLP; The John S. and Cynthia Reed Foundation; First Republic Bank; The Peabody Foundation; Charlesbank Capital Partners; PTC, The D.L. Saunders Real Estate Corp; Massachusetts Cultural Council; New England Foundation for the Arts.

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