School of Music Events

Inaugural Jazz Week Celebration and Scotty Barnhart Residency

The WSU Jazz Area was excited to host Scotty Barnhart, professor of jazz trumpet at Florida State University and the director of the GRAMMY® Award-winning Count Basie Orchestra, as the artist-in-residence for the inaugural “Jazz Week” Celebration, held April 8–11, 2024. The virtuoso trumpeter began the week rehearsing with Jazz Northwest, WSU’s faculty jazz ensemble, in preparation for Tuesday’s combo concert. Jazz Northwest, featuring Scotty, performed original compositions and arrangements by Barnhart and WSU jazz faculty members César Haas and Aaron Hill. Scotty also sat in with a student combo, performing an original by composition major Rogan Tinsley. 

Later in the week, the WSU Jazz Big Band and WSU Jazz Lab Band spent time with Professor Barnhart to prepare for the big band concert and to receive valuable workshop time with this jazz master, author, and educator.

As part of the residency, funded by grants from the WSU Center for Arts and Humanities and Allegro RSO, Scotty guest-lectured in MUS 267 Black American Music, gave a master class to David Turnbull’s trumpet studio, and was featured in a well-attended, student-driven informal Q&A. There, he shared personal anecdotes of encounters with legends, such as Herbie Hancock, George Benson, and Quincy Jones.

Professor Barnhart is a published book author. His next project, 20 years in the making, will present interviews he has conducted with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, and Terrance Blanchard. His time at WSU this spring was of lasting impact, perhaps best summed up in the one-word descriptor most used by students in reference to his residency: transformative.