Lead by clarinetist Matt Koza, the Artie Shaw Orchestra continues the Big Band tradition begun by their namesake. Performing swing-era arrangements made famous by Shaw himself, this performance whisks the audience back to the golden age of swing.
The performances are on Saturday, January 24th at 3:00 pm and 7:30 pm at the The Younts Center for Performing Arts. Tickets are available for $20 – $30.
Please visit www.yountscenter.org/the-artie-shaw-orchestra for additional information.
On the eve of America’s entry into World War II, TIME magazine reported that to the German masses the United States meant “sky-scrapers, Clark Gable, and Artie Shaw.” Some 42 years after that, in December l983, Artie Shaw made a brief return to the bandstand, after thirty years away from music, not to play his world-famous clarinet but to launch his latest (and still touring) orchestra at the newly refurbished Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York.
The Artie Shaw Orchestra was looking for a clarinet player in January 2008 to front the band. Rich Chiaraluce received a call from Bill Curtis, manager of the orchestra, and has been the featured artist ever since. It is work he loves. Rich has performed with many of the famous singers from the American Songbook Era including Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett, Nancy Wilson, Dakota Stanton, and Natalie Cole. The clarinet has always ‘been his horn’ and keeping the tradition of clarinet playing alive is important to him.
With the retirement of former director and clarinetist Dick Johnson, Rich Chiaraluce took the lead until the winter of 2010.
Currently taking the director position is Matt Koza, a clarinetist /saxophonist who was born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn. Matt studied saxophone at Binghamton University-State University of New York, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1995. He attended graduate school at Youngstown State University in Ohio and Queens College-City University of New York, where he was awarded the 1999 ASCAP Foundation Louis Armstrong Scholarship. In 2000 Matt began playing tenor saxophone with the Artie Shaw Orchestra, directed by Dick Johnson. During his tenure as the featured saxophone soloist with the orchestra they toured extensively worldwide, accompanying the likes of Tony Bennett, Jack Jones and Buddy DeFranco, and were featured at the Newport Jazz Festival. Matt is proud to assume the position as the director of the Artie Shaw Orchestra, and after years of being inspired by Dick Johnson’s virtuoso clarinet performances, he is honored to be the next to carry on Artie Shaw’s legacy.