In 2013 WAYJO embarked upon an artist exchange program with the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG) in Austria. The first exchange saw world-renowned trumpeter Jim Rotondi visit Perth from the university and later that year WAYJO’s Artistic Director Mace Francis visited Graz to attend workshops and work with some of the best Jazz performers and composers in the World.
This April will see trombonist Ed Neumeister come to Perth to perform with WAYJO as part of the exchange. Ed is a Grammy Award nominated artist, and has performed with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Mel Lewis Big Band (Vanguard Jazz Orchestra), New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and San Francisco Ballet.
This program is proudly supported by the Geoffrey Christian Artist Exchange Fund.
About KUG
With more than 2, 000 students in Graz and Oberschützen, the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG) is an internationally renowned place of education: 17 institutes and 2 doctoral schools offer highly qualified training for artistic and scientific professions. Owing to its geographic situation it perfectly combines Austrian tradition in music and performing arts with the creative potential of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
With its leitmotif, “Open for the new by tradition”, its focus on contemporary arts and its unique living symbiosis between the arts and science, KUG has been able to shape its profile among universities in Europe.
About Ed Neumeister
Ed Neumeister was born in Topeka Kansas and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 50’s and 60’s. He began playing music at the age of five with trumpet, switching to trombone at the age of nine. He was a longtime fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. After moving to New York in 1980, Ed performed for 15 years in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and 19 years with the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (which during Neumeister’s tenure became the multi Grammy-nominated Vanguard Jazz Orchestra). Other renowned artists he performed and recorded with include Jerry Garcia, Gerry Mulligan, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. Not limited stylistically he also collected experience by performing with classical orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Ballet.
In 1992, Ed toured for the first time as a guest soloist in Europe. Since then he has been invited extensively as a conductor and guest soloist in Europe and US. Many of these invitations include composition commissions because of his unique mixing from the traditions of Big Band Jazz and Contemporary Classical. His arrangement of “A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square“ was nominated for a Grammy Award. Through his conducting and composing activities Ed established, among others, a regular relationship with the Metropol Radio Orchestra (Netherlands) and the Budapest Jazz Orchestra (Hungary).
Beginning back in San Francisco, Ed has always been leading and composing for his own ensembles. He is the founder of the NeuHat Ensemble in New York, an 18-piece hybrid ensemble, and ENJO (Ed Neumeister Jazz Orchestra) in New York and Los Angeles. As a leader, he has recorded seven albums.
