Jordan VanHemertJordan VanHemert

** Hope College is among the colleges and universities across the nation that have shifted to remote instruction to help stem the spread of COVID-19, with in-person instruction scheduled to resume on Tuesday, April 14.  Correspondingly, all college-sponsored events through Monday, April 13, have been canceled. For more information on the Hope College response to the virus, please visit hope.edu/coronavirus. **

The faculty recital series at Hope College will feature saxophonist Jordan VanHemert accompanied by multiple other performers on Sunday, March 29, at 2 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.

The public is invited.  Admission is free.

In addition to VanHemert, the program will include Lisa Sung, piano; Kazuki Takemura, bass; Jeff Shoup, drums; Christopher Fashun, conductor; Martha Waldvogel-Warren, harp; and members of the Hope College Orchestra.

The repertoire will include a few selections from “Charlie Parker with Strings,” which is a series of two recordings released in 1950 by Mercury Records. Because of the logistical nature of using an orchestra for these jazz works, the arrangements are rarely heard live. The compositions are being presented in celebration of the centennial of Charlie Parker’s birth on Aug. 29, 1920.

The remainder of the program will be music composed by VanHemert for his debut album as a leader, including the premiere of a new version of one of his compositions called “Sea of Tranquility,” arranged by Josh Trentadue. Other pieces by VanHemert that will be performed include “The Path Ahead,” “Autumn Song,” “Invisible Island,” “Just be Real (Say What You Mean)” and “In the Verdant Stillness.”

VanHemert is an assistant professor of music at Hope, where he joined the faculty in 2019.  He teaches applied saxophone lessons, the saxophone quartet and Survey of Jazz, and directs the Jazz Arts Collective.  His research focuses on the intersectionality of classical and jazz saxophone pedagogy and how the two musical traditions can inform each other in the lesson studio through audiation.

He is an active composer whose creative work includes fulfilling commissions for wind chamber groups and jazz ensembles all over the country. He has written for the Zenith Saxophone Quartet, Greenhill (Texas) School Flute Choir and many others.

VanHemert is frequently invited to serve as an adjudicator and clinician for MSBOA district and state jazz festivals, as well as Central Michigan University's annual Jazz Weekend. In addition, he has been invited to present his work at the Michigan Music Conference and North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial and Regional Conferences. VanHemert is a Vandoren Artist-Clinician.

Locally, he is in his sixth season performing in the orchestra with Hope Summer Repertory Theatre; composed a jazz mass as part of a yearly Advent commission for First Reformed Church of Holland; and is the founder and music director of the Holland Concert Jazz Orchestra.

He holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Central Michigan University, a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Audience members who need assistance to fully enjoy any event at Hope are encouraged to contact the college's Events and Conferences Office by emailing events@hope.edu or calling 616-395-7222 on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., on Columbia Ave. between Ninth and 10th streets.