ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY— The Fisher Center and Catskill Jazz Factory present Sound the Trumpet!, a world premiere, three-concert winter series led by two of today’s top trumpet players exploring the rhythmic influences and musical storytelling that have shaped hip-hop, reggae, merengue, and beyond. Keyon Harrold leads Jazz and the Birth of Hip-Hop to kick off the series on Saturday, February 9, followed by Etienne Charles leading Jamaican Roots on Saturday, March 16, and The Vibes of Venezuela on Friday, April 19. All programs begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Fisher Center’s intimate LUMA Theater. Tickets start at $25 and can be ordered online at fishercenter.bard.edu or by calling the box office at 845-758-7900. Subscribe and purchase great seats for all three shows in this special series for $99.

Jazz and the Birth of Hip-Hop
Led by Keyon Harrold
Saturday, February 9
Grammy Award–winning trumpeter Keyon Harrold, named “the future of the trumpet” by Wynton Marsalis, paints a picture of today’s hip-hop within the history of jazz. Featuring original compositions, classic songs from the evolution of hip-hop, and new works from Harrold’s recent album release The Mugician.

Jamaican Roots
Led by Etienne Charles, featuring Shenel Johns
Saturday, March 16
Trinidadian trumpeter Etienne Charles leads this concert featuring rising Jamaican vocalist Shenel Johns, rightfully described as “history in the making” by the Boston Globe. Exploring the styles of mento, ska, reggae, rocksteady, dub, and their various contemporary influences, Charles and Johns feel the flow of Jamaican influence on today’s global sound of blues, jazz, and pop.

The Vibes of Venezuela 
Led by Etienne Charles, featuring Linda Briceño and Jorge Glem
Friday, April 19
Journey through the rhythms of 19th-century popular waltz, 1920s merengue, and the lively cantor of traditional joropo in this celebration of Venezuelan jazz. Vocalist and trumpeter Linda Briceño and cuatro virtuoso Jorge Glem join trumpeter Etienne Charles to examine African, Native South American, and European influences on the modern music of Venezuela.

About the Fisher Center
Bard College has distinguished itself as a leader in the field of liberal arts and sciences for more than 150 years by providing a first-rate undergraduate education for its students. The College is known for its pioneering ideas in education, its passionate commitment to the highest standards of artistic inquiry and practice, and its vigorous advocacy of liberty, citizenship, individual dignity, and tolerance of differences.

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by architect Frank Gehry, illustrates the commitment of the College to bringing performing artists of the highest rank to perform and work with its students, faculty, staff, and the public. Bard Fisher Center creates moments that inspire curiosity, learning, and civic participation, believing that artists are uniquely able to lead discourse on the most urgent questions of our time, and that substantial, long-term investment in artistic innovation is vital to a well-balanced society. Bard Fisher Center’s programs in opera, dance, theater, music, jazz, and cabaret, along with its world-class facilities, provide an outstanding venue in which to create and learn.

Together these institutions provide an exceptional environment for artists to create and inspire students’ thinking and practice. As a central, multivenue arts platform in our region with a core program of a trailblazing global liberal arts college, Bard Fisher realizes Bard’s commitment to the arts as a cultural and educational right for all.

About Catskill Jazz Factory
Based in the heart of the Catskills, the Catskill Jazz Factory is a “regional arts think-tank” and “formidable jazz incubator” (HV Almanac Weekly) founded in 2012 with an aim to support today’s best young jazz artists. Catskill Jazz Factory offers year-round school workshops, concerts, mountaintop residencies, lectures, and world-class performances in diverse spaces to a variety of regional audiences across the Hudson Valley, New York City, and beyond by partnering with educational facilities, arts organizations, and a variety of nonprofits and businesses. Venues range from mountaintop coffee and donut shops and local high schools to recent concert series collaborations with the New York Botanical Garden, the Bard SummerScape Spiegeltent, and the Uncharted Series at Greenwich House.

Previous programs boast collaborations with a number of world-class musicians, including pianists Marcus Roberts and Dan Tepfer, trombonists Wycliffe Gordon and Chris Washburne, and vocalists Charenee Wade and Cecile McLorin Salvant. Recent residency leaders include Vince Giordano, Vuyo Sotashe, Brianna Thomas, Aaron Johnson, John Lumpkin, and Sam Reider.

The Catskill Jazz Factory is a program of 23Arts Initiative, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. For more information, go to catskilljazzfactory.org.