Illinois State University’s School of Music will host a concert with guest artists Doug Stone and Chris Ziemba at 6 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 10, in Kemp Recital Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.
Stone, who was raised in Peoria, began playing the saxophone professionally at age 10. While at Northern Illinois University, Stone performed with jazz legends Frank Wes, Frank Foster, Benny Golson, Rufus Reid, Ed Thigpen, Larry Ridley and a host of others. Stone also led the university’s top combo as well as his own groups, the Jazz Arranging Syndicate and Scantily Clad, featuring his original works. He has performed with trombonist, composer, and arranger Joey Sellers and is a member of Panoramic, a world-jazz group co-led by steel pan virtuoso Liam Teague and pianist/percussionist Robert Chappell. Stone has toured with Maynard Ferguson and the Big Bop Nouveau, and leads his own group, the Doug Stone Quartet and Trio, and is co-leader of the Nick Fryer/Doug Stone Quartet and the Stone/Bratt Big Band. He has written several pieces for big band and his works have been featured with the Central Illinois Jazz Train Orchestra and vocalist Kathy Kosins. Stone has recorded with numerous groups including the Sam Craine Quartet, the Dave Hoffman Sextet, the NIU Jazz Ensemble and Jazztet, the Jazz Arranging Syndicate, Scantily Clad, Birch Creek Academy Big Band, the Ed Breazeale Group, the Ji Young Lee Quartet, the Stuart Mindeman Group and Panoramic. He is currently a graduate student at the Eastman School of Music.
A 2008 graduate of the esteemed Eastman School of Music, Ziemba is currently enrolled in post-graduate studies at Eastman. He is a nationally acclaimed classical and jazz pianist, who has studied jazz piano with Fred Hersch, Harold Danko, Bill Dobbins, Paul Hofmann and Bobby Jones. Most recently, he was invited to appear as a guest artist on Marian McPartland’s radio broadcast “Piano Jazz,” which was aired on National Public Radio. He and several others from the Eastman School performed side-by-side at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Ziemba was accepted as one of four pianists into the 2008 Professional Training Workshop at Carnegie Hall, led by Fred Hersch.
Ziemba is also a well-established composer, arranger and conductor. At the age of 7, he made his debut on the concert stage, appearing with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic and Amherst Symphony Orchestras. Ziemba has conducted the Buffalo Choral Arts Society in the world premiere of his composition, “Soft and Silent” and was honored as composer-pianist and story subject as part of the production team for WGRZ-TV2 that received an EMMY Award in the category of Religious Programming. Ziemba has been featured on “CBS This Morning,” and “American Journal” and appeared on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
