An original music composition by Jonathan McElroy, Ph.D., professor in the Music and Theatre Arts Department, has been accepted for presentation at the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC) Symposium in May 2024. The symposium is being held at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music in Nashville, TN.
Titled “Blues Bop,” the piece is a big band composition which combines bebop elements along with the Kansas City swing sound of the Count Basie Orchestra. Written for professionals, the piece was also conceived as an advanced-level composition for high school jazz bands.
The ISJAC International Jazz Composers’ Symposium is a bi-annual conference that brings together hundreds of jazz composers, arrangers, educators, and industry executives for three days of concerts, lectures, panel discussions, and the presentation and honoring of new jazz compositions and arrangements.
The Symposium is known as a robust yet intimate gathering of the world’s finest jazz writers. As a central tenet of the ISJAC mission, the Symposium seeks to unite, develop, and electrify the global community of jazz arrangers and composers.