Harper to host dinner, jazz
Erin Blanchette, a 2011 graduate of Fremd High School, Palatine, will be featured as a guest jazz vocalist at the Harper College annual summertime dinner and concert June 22.
Blanchette will perform alongside the Ken Spurr Jazz Ensemble and the Harper Jazz Lab Band at 6:30 p.m. outside the Student Center, North Patio of Building A, on the Palatine campus.
Haley Reinhart, who finished third in the recent “American Idol” competition, performed at last year’s Dinner and Jazz Concert.
Blanchette, who has taken Spurr’s jazz combo classes and private jazz piano lessons, will attend 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 of Hoffman Estates; Lexi Burkley of 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, which 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 details, visit harpercollege.edu or call (847) 925-6100.