ANNOUNCEMENTS > PRESS RELEASES

Jazz artist Magali Souriau to appear at MIT in rare Boston-area appearance

Cambridge, MA... In a rare Boston-area appearance, French pianist and composer Magali Souriau will co-conduct and perform with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble (FJE) on Friday, March 9 at 8 p.m. at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. The concert will feature some of her own works, including the premiere of the jazz ensemble version of her trio "The Lady with the Hat." The concert also features the music of Mingus, Ellington and Thad Jones. Souriau will be Composer-in-Residence with the MIT Music Section March 6-9.

Tickets are $5 at the door or from zaptix.

Souriau is a 1986 honor graduate (Diploma de Jazz) from the Conservatoire National de Marseilles. She took the Conservatoire's Medaille d'or Jazz in 1988. She received a scholarship to Berklee College of Music and won the College's 1990 Woody Herman Jazz Master Award and the 1993 International Association of Jazz Educators' Gil Evans Fellowship in big band composition. Over the past several years, Souriau has led her own jazz orchestra at a variety of jazz venues in New York City including Smalls, The Jazz Standard, and Birdland. Souriau has composed, arranged, and conducted for the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, The Big Van, directed by Guillermo Klein, and The Clifford Jordan Big Band. "Magali Souriau Orchestra: BirdlandSessions," her first CD, was released in 2000 on Koch Jazz. Her second CD, "Petite Promenade," featuring her trio, was recently released by Fresh Sound Records. Ben Ratliff of the New York Times said Souriau was "One of the most original orchestral jazz composers of our time -- astonishing music."

--end--