Jazz ensemble to headline Harper dinner and jazz concert
Erin Blanchette, a 2011 graduate of Fremd High School, Palatine, will be featured as a guest jazz vocalist, along with the Ken Spurr Jazz Ensemble and the Harper Jazz Lab Band, at the college's annual summertime dinner and concert at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 22, outside the Student Center, North Patio, of Building A, on the Palatine campus.
Haley Reinhart, a recent top three finalist on American Idol, performed at the 39th annual Dinner and Jazz Concert last June.
Blanchette, who has taken Spurr's jazz combo classes and private jazz piano lessons, will be attending the University of Miami, Fla., where she will major in vocal jazz performance. She will be joined onstage by three Harper students who won top prizes in the recent Harper Hawk Idol Contest in May: Linda Collins, Hoffman Estates; Lexi Burkley, Lake Zurich; and James Ross, Barrington.
Other musical selections by Spurr's Jazz Ensemble include: “All The Things You Are,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Stella by Starlight,” and “Star Eyes.” All are considered jazz classics from The Great American Songbook.
Formerly with the Curt Warren Quartet, who performed at the Texas Jazz Festival from 1997 to 1999, Spurr's first CD recording, Sometime Ago, was released in May, 2001. A former student of master jazz pianists, such as DePaul's Alan Swain, Spurr teaches jazz piano at Elmhurst College and Harper College.
Festivities begin at 6 p.m. with a buffet of barbecue chicken, mostaccioli, corn- on-the-cob, salads, watermelon and cookies. The cost of the buffet is $6.50 for adults and $3 for children. The free jazz concert follows the buffet at 6:30 p.m. For information, go to harpercollege.edu or call (847) 925-6100.
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