April 9 - Oliver Lake Big Band & Jazz House Kids to Perform at MPL

On Saturday, April 9 at 2 p.m., the Oliver Lake Big Band and Jazz House Kids will present a free concert at Montclair Public Library. The concert, sponsored by the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, features some of today's finest Jazz improvisers performing Oliver Lake's original compositions.

For the past decade, Oliver Lake's Big Band has served as one of his greatest achievements and most sophisticated compositional outlets. He is currently celebrating the second recorded release of his Big Band, entitled Wheels, which has been met with widespread critical acclaim.

The Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards is a ten-year program undertaken by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, in partnership with Creative Capital, to empower, invest in and celebrate artists by offering flexible, multi-year funding as a response to financial and funding challenges both unique to the performing arts and to each grantee. For more information, visit ddpaa.org.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is recommended. The library is handicapped accessible and can provide assistive listening devices upon request. For more information on this event or to register, please visit www.montclairlibrary.org/calendar or call 973-744-0500 ext. 2235.

About Oliver Lake

The artistic scope of renowned saxophonist, composer, painter and poet Oliver Lake's half century-long career is unparalleled. From collaborations with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Flux String Quartet, Bjork, Lou Reed, A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def and Me'shell Ndegeocello, to his co-founding of the Black Artist Group (BAG) and the highly acclaimed World Saxophone Quartet, creation of his non-profit Passin' Thru organization, becoming a mainstay with Pittsburgh's City of Asylum, publishing two books of poetry and frequently having original artwork displayed in exhibitions across the country, Oliver Lake views it all as part of the same whole.

Lake has been a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and has received commissions from the Library of Congress, the Rockefeller Foundation ASCAP, the International Association for Jazz Education, Composers Forum, the McKim Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, the Lila Wallace Arts Partners Program, and in 2006, was honored to receive the Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at the Kennedy Center. Most notably, Oliver was recently selected to receive the prestigious 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award, a multi-year grant awarded to only 19 American artists in the fields of jazz, theater and dance. As such, the coming years promise to be exciting and filled with bold new artistic endeavors.

Oliver continues to remain focused and immersed in his work with his Organ Quartet, Big Band, Trio 3 and a multitude of other performers and ensembles. For more information, visit oliverlake.net and facebook.com/oliverlakejazz.