On the eve of America's entry into World War II, TIME magazine reported that to the German masses the United States meant "sky-scrapers, Clark Gable, and Artie Shaw." Some 42 years after that, in December l983, Artie Shaw made a brief return to the bandstand, after thirty years away from music, not to play his world-famous clarinet but to launch his latest (and still touring) orchestra at the newly refurbished Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York.
Currently taking the director position is Matt Koza, a clarinetist /saxophonist who was born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn. Matt studied saxophone at Binghamton University-State University of New York, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1995. He attended graduate school at Youngstown State University in Ohio and Queens College-City University of New York, where he was awarded the 1999 ASCAP Foundation Louis Armstrong Scholarship. In 2000 Matt began playing tenor saxophone with the Artie Shaw Orchestra, directed by Dick Johnson. During his tenure as the featured saxophone soloist with the orchestra they toured extensively worldwide, accompanying the likes of Tony Bennett, Jack Jones and Buddy DeFranco, and were featured at the Newport Jazz Festival. Matt is proud to assume the position as the director of the Artie Shaw Orchestra, and after years of being inspired by Dick Johnson's virtuoso clarinet performances, he is honored to be the next to carry on Artie Shaw's legacy.
"There's nothing like it," said Matt Koza, clarinetist and director of the orchestra said. "To stand in front of the band, to play the music, to be surrounded by the full sound of the brass and the rhythm section, it’s an unparalleled experience."
