June 17, 2021

Ghost Town is the opening track of Javier’s debut album, Javier Rosario Trio Vol. I: A Celebration of Life. The Road Ahead will be part of the tracks of Javier’s up-coming new album. Stay tuned for its 2021 release! The beauty of my original music has been possible by the artistry, trust and generosity of my bandmates: Zak King and Scott Kiefner.

Javier Rosario Trio members: Javier Rosario (guitarist/composer/ arranger/ bandleader), Zak King (drummer), Scott Kiefner (bassist)

Guitar virtuoso, composer, bandleader, educator and recording artist, Javier Rosario is the first ever Michel Camilo Scholarship winner. The scholarship was an initiative of the Dominican born, Grammy, Latin Grammy and Emmy Award winning pianist. It has been the first scholarship of its kind in the history of the Dominican Republic, where Javier was born in Santo Domingo. In 2006, Javier attended Berklee College of Music with full scholarship, graduating with the highest ratings ever given to a guitarist. In 2009, he performed at the Berklee Jazz and Blues Guitar Night: a concert which only featured the very top players of the entire school. In 2010, Javier decided to further his studies at the Longy School of Music of Bard College with a master’s degree. There he was acknowledged by his guitar teachers as possibly the highest-level guitarist ever to enter the jazz program.

Among some of the musicians Javier has performed with are: Joe Lovano, John Lockwood, Matt Savage, Zachary King, Scott Kiefner, Aaron Holthus, Avery Logan, Bob Edinger, Vardan Ovsepian, Jeff Galindo, Phil Grenadier, Bret Willmott, Hoo Kim, just to name a few. Javier has performed at Blue Note in New York City, Casa de Teatro Jazz Festival, A-Town Jazz Festival, Strand Theater, Massachusetts’ State House, Cornelia Street Cafe, St. Botolph Club, Berklee Performance Center, Pianos NYC, Shrine World Music Venue, Silvana, Port City Blue, Riverwalk Cafe & Music Bar, Radio Bean Jazz Fest, Thunder Road, Tonic, just to name a few. Javier is a Community Engagement Programs Teaching Artist and faculty member at Community Music Center of Boston and Boston Collegiate Charter School. Javier has been a clinician at the National Conservatory of Music in the Dominican Republic since 2009. In late December of 2019, Javier released his debut album Javier Rosario Trio, Vol. I: A Celebration of Life which has been reviewed nationally and internationally.

The Fourth Piano Sonata Op. 128 of Dianne Goolkasian Rahbee (b. 1938), composed in 2002, features a dedication to a lifelong friend of the composer, a Belgian pianist by the name of Diane Anderson. Rife throughout the work are musical expressions of the same name, “Diane”, represented by the descending second. Throughout the sonata we hear this figure and must continually ask, is this a salutation or a signature? Regardless of the answer, this four-movement work takes us on a familiar journey that explores the diverse range of emotions we feel in some of our closest friendships.

The composer herself has a special connection to CMCB. While she can directly trace her teachers to Beethoven himself, and after an illustrious career that spawned from studying at the worlds best music schools, (Juilliard being her stepping stone to the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria) she confided in me recently that the best and most memorable musical instruction she received, was during her childhood at the Music Center. Fast-forward over 50 years later, and CMCB is still fostering a musical growth in our community that will stretch through generations.

I am honored to present to the community that I’ve fallen in love with, a work by a composer that I’ve loved my entire life and had the privilege to call my piano teacher. I am equally humbled to know that others here call me their piano teacher. As they do so I can’t help but think how nothing separates them from a CMCB student in the 1940s named Dianne, and I can’t help but wonder which one of you will write the next great piano sonata to be performed by one of your students!

Raised in Greater-Boston, pianist Alexander Morollo began his training at the age of six under the renowned piano teacher and composer Dianne Goolkasian Rahbee. After years of performance experience in the classical literature along with contemporary music, Mr. Morollo won the Catherine Dower-Gold Performing Arts Award in 2008 and First Prize in the Young Artists Piano Competition of Western Massachusetts and Connecticut the following year. In 2015, Mr. Morollo was awarded the Mary Ellis Smith Prize for ‘Excellence in the Art of Piano Pedagogy’. He is currently a Signature Series Artist with Midori and Friends.

An avid teacher, Mr. Morollo is currently on the piano faculty at the South Shore Conservatory, and the Community Music Center of Boston. Throughout his teaching career he has prepared students for proficiency exams in piano and music theory. He continues to do so through the Royal Conservatory of Music. Several of his piano students of his have been accepted into Bachelor of Music programs themselves, most recently at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and Ithaca College in New York. Mr. Morollo holds a Bachelors of Music from Emerson College, and a performance diploma and Master of Music from the Longy School of Music.

PRELUDE N.1 for solo marimba was originally written for guitar, explaining the harmonies from flamenco music, as well as the Spanish mood of the work. The marimba version was completed in 1983 and is dedicated to Rose Braunstein. Throughout its three themes, the spirit of the Spanish music can be felt, and the fingerings of guitar arpeggios are suggested in the third theme.

PRELUDE N.3 was written in 1987, soon after my arrival in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil and is dedicated to my first percussion teacher, Luiz Anunciaçao. The introduction and coda are presented with rolls and are in a choral style. In the second part, two new themes are introduced in a fast alternating motion of the mallets, demonstrating the virtuosity through expressive melodies.

Michael Weinfield-Zell is a Boston-based classical and contemporary percussionist and drum set artist, in demand both nationally and internationally. As a featured soloist Michael has been invited to perform in Beijing at the Central Conservatory of Music as well as the Korean Broadcasting Station in Seoul, in addition to the Kennedy Center, the Naumberg Bandshell in New York’s Central Park, and the Pérez Art Museum in Miami. Notable collaborations include So Percussion, Ensemble ACJW (Juilliard/Carnegie Hall), the electronic music duo Matmos, conductors Simon Rattle and David Robertson, and major symphonic ensembles such as the Kansas City Symphony and GrandTeton Music Festival. He has held appointed positions with the Florida Grand Opera as well as the Honolulu and Annapolis Symphonies.

As a teaching artist Dr. Weinfield-Zell has received numerous invitations to give masterclasses at prestigious music schools and universities across the country including the Peabody Conservatory, Bard College Conservatory of Music, the Lamont School of Music at University of Denver, Kansas University, and University of Massachusetts Amherst where he has been a frequent guest. Currently he coordinates percussion activities for the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, one of the largest and most comprehensive youth orchestra programs in the country with over 500 young musicians. Dr. Weinfield-Zell is also on faculty at Powers Music School and Community Music Center of Boston where he teaches applied classical percussion and drum set.

Jessie Montgomery has garnered critical acclaim as both a composer and violinist. Her compositions have been performed by major orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists, and recent commissions have come from the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, the National Choral Society, and the ASCAP Foundation. She is a founding violinist of PUBLIQuartet, and a current member of the Catalyst Quartet. As a Black musician, she has enjoyed a long-time association with the Sphinx Organization, where she was a two-time laureate of the Sphinx Competition, and is currently composer-in-residence with the Sphinx Virtuosi. Rhapsody no. 1 for solo violin was composed in 2014.

Karl Ørvik, violin and viola, has appeared in solo and chamber music recitals throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Norway and South Korea. He has been a concerto soloist with the Bangor, Racine and Green Bay Civic symphonies, and has extensive experience as a concertmaster and section player with numerous other orchestras in New England and the Midwest. An enthusiastic chamber musician, he is a former violinist with the Boston Public Quartet, and concertizes frequently with Stonehill College’s resident faculty ensemble, the Stonehill Trio. As the founding violinist of Trio Klaritas, he has performed on concert series in Boston, New York City and Los Angeles, as well as at the Tanglewood Music Center and Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. Mr. Ørvik has taught violin and viola in a variety of settings, and he works easily with students of all ages and abilities. He is an adjunct professor of violin and viola at both the University of New Hampshire and Stonehill College, and a long-time member of the string faculty at the historic Community Music Center of Boston, where he was the recipient of the 2017 Marilla MacDill Prize for Teaching Excellence. In the summers he teaches at the UNC-Asheville Chamber Music Workshop in North Carolina, the Point Counterpoint music festival in Vermont and the Youth and Muse festival in Boston. He has been published in the ASTA Journal, and is the author of New Scale Method, an innovative scale method book for advanced violinists and violists. A native of Canada, Mr. Ørvik has studied with many distinguished musicians, including Roman Totenberg, Stephen Majeske and Calvin Wiersma, and members of the Muir, Cleveland, Cavani, Fine Arts and Portland string quartets. He holds performance degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Lawrence University, and in January of 2012 he received his DMA from Boston University.

The Matt Savage Quartet will pay tribute to two legends of jazz – saxophonist John Coltrane (1926-1967) and pianist McCoy Tyner (1938-2020). As bandmates in the John Coltrane Quartet, these two musicians were integral in adapting jazz (a Black American art form) to the chaotic realities of the 1960s civil rights movement. The Quartet adopted an increasingly avant-garde and freeform sound in its later years, pushing the limits of what each instrument could do, and augmenting the sense of inner spirituality in the Quartet’s music. This emotional and intense style was continued by Tyner (the last surviving member of Coltrane’s quartet) in his own groups after Coltrane’s death.

Matt Savage’s group will play one of Coltrane’s most relaxing tunes (“Central Park West”, composed around a 4-key cycle) and one of Tyner’s most exciting pieces (“Four By Five”, which alternates 4/4 and 5/4 time).

Members: Matt Savage – piano, Mark Zaleski – soprano saxophone, Max Ridley – bass, Zachary King – drums

Matt Savage, age 29, has had a remarkable 19-year professional career as a jazz musician, bandleader and composer with ensembles of different size. He’s played with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Chick Corea, the Ellington All Stars, Chaka Khan, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Watson, Clark Terry, Jimmy Heath, Jason Moran, Arturo O’Farrill, John Pizzarelli, Joshua Redman, Terri Lyne Carrington, Jon Faddis, Jerry Bergonzi and Donny McCaslin among others. He’s also opened for rock legends Neil Young and Stephen Stills, and has performed with Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, Shawn Colvin and Al Stewart. Along the way, he’s recorded twelve albums as leader and one as collaborator. He is a Bösendorfer piano artist.

As a composer, Matt has garnered respect and recognition. He composed and recorded the score for a full-length documentary film, Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story. The movie, which premiered in 2014, chronicles the life of the late jazz alto saxophonist Frank Morgan. Additionally, Savage wrote almost all the songs on his twelve albums, several of which have been used in short documentaries, on web sites, in school music curricula and in government educational materials.

Matt’s latest project is the Matt Savage Groove Experiment’s debut EP, Splash Variations. Splash Variations was released on December 7, 2018, and it was accompanied by a CD release tour in early 2019.

Savage has toured worldwide, including performances at The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Birdland, Blue Note (NYC), Bohemian Caverns, Smalls Jazz Club, The Town Hall, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Scullers, the Jazz Standard, the Pantages Theatre, the Iridium, the Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival, Heineken Jazzaldia (Spain), the Costa Rica International Jazz Festival, the International VSA Arts Festival, the Jacksonville Jazz Festival,
the Ottawa International Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz Festival, the Earshot Jazz Festival, tours of Japan, China, India, Spain, Curacao, Aruba and Singapore.

Media appearances have included Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz,” NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “The Late Show with David Letterman,” the “Today” Show, ABC’s “20/20,” the Discovery Channel, BBC, Telemundo TV, and news shows and documentaries worldwide (including the U.S., Germany, France, Japan and the U.K.) The Wall Street Journal, JazzTimes, JAZZIZ, TIME, WIRED, Der Spiegel, The Jerusalem Report, People Magazine, TIME for Kids, American Way, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Boston Globe, the New York Daily News, and others have featured Matt in print.

Having received his Bachelor’s Degree from Berklee College of Music and his Master’s Degree from Manhattan School of Music, Matt balances his professional music career with teaching. Back in the Boston area, Matt is an adjunct professor at Saint Anselm College and Bunker Hill Community College, and also teaches at Community Music Center of Boston and Note-worthy Experiences. He gives masterclasses and workshops domestically and internationally (in English and Spanish) as well as private piano lessons.