TICKETS are $15 General/$10 Student.

This will be a proof of vaccine mandatory night per the musicians' requests.

Concerts and events made possible, in part, with support from the Wells Philanthropic Services provided by grants from the John, Anna, and Martha Jane Fields Memorial Trust Foundation and the Florence V. Carroll Charitable Trust, The Esther and George Jaruga Charitable Foundation, the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County's ArtsEverywhere initiative, and the Arts Project Support Grant and Arts Recovery Grant through the Indiana Arts Commission.

Tim Hagans, trumpet (3x Grammy-nominee)

Jon Irabagon, tenor (Monk Competition winner)

Ryan Shultz, bass trumpet

Chad McCullough, trumpet

Karl Montzka, piano

Larry Kohut, bass

Eric Montzka, drums

Tim Hagans (3X Grammy Nominee) and Jon Irabagon ('08 Monk Competition Winner, one of New York City's 25 Jazz Icons) join Ryan Shultz and Chad McCullough's Quintet for a night of kindred music making building on years of collaboration and shared reverence.

TIM HAGANS

timhagans.com

Jim Macnie of the Village Voice wrote: “Fetchingly situated between Brownian blasts and Milesian murmurs, the trumpeter’s lines cover lots of emotional breadth. It makes for a straight-ahead quintet approach that is quite willing to bend the rules to suit a tune’s forgotten corners. His poetry with standard ballads might hush this room. Evidently he does know what love is.” 

Tim Hagans was nominated for Grammy awards for Best Instrumental Composition for “Box of Cannoli” from THE AVATAR SESSIONS (2010 Fuzzy Music); Best Contemporary Jazz CD for RE-ANIMATION (2000 Blue Note) and ANIMATION-IMAGINATION (1999 Blue Note).  

Tim Hagans has performed and recorded with Thad Jones, Ernie Wilkins, Joe Lovano, Bob Belden and Dexter Gordon. It was Thad Jones who encouraged Tim to write music, and Hagans' first composition appeared on a Thad Jones Eclipse LP. 

For three years he was a member of the Stan Kenton Orchestra. For fifteen years he was artistic director and composer-in-residence for the Norrbotten Big Band, traveling to Sweden to perform, conduct and arrange projects with guests including Rufus Reid, Randy Brecker, Peter Erskine, and Dave Liebman. THE AVATAR SESSIONS CD features music he created during that tenure, performed by Tim Hagans, the Norrbotten Big Band, and the above mentioned guest artists.  Tim Hagans is the featured soloist on the soundtrack by Howard Shore for the movie The Score, starring Robert DeNiro and Marlon Brando. In 2001 he was the subject of an hour- long documentary made for Swedish television entitled Boogaloo Road). In June 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. 

Tim Hagans was the recipient of the 2008 IAJE/ASCAP Established Composer commission and was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Composition Grant. Other notable commissions include the Barent’s Composers Orchestra in 2009; NDR Big Band in Hamburg in 2001, 2004, 2013 & 2016; Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra in 2003, 2007 and 2014; and the UMO Jazz Orchestra in Helsinki in 1997 and 2005. He has composed music for Christer Engberg’s play The Hostage and for Jazz Baltica. 

 In 2007 he began performing and composing for the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble, a contemporary dance company dedicated to the use of live original music in performance and the integration of musicians into the stage imagery. In 2009 he created music for GET OUTSIDE, an evening-length work for the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble in collaboration with the Norrbotten Big Band. In 2010 he collaborated with author, actor and filmmaker Peter Josyph on THE WAY OF THE TRUMPET, a performance work for improvised trumpet and haiku.

JON IRABAGON

jonirabagon.com

First-generation Filipino-American Jon Irabagon (b. 1978, Chicago) has been influenced by the self-empowering and individualistic philosophies and aesthetic of the great AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) ensembles as well as the historic world-class tenor saxophone lineage from his hometown. Equally adept at composing for rising stars in new music and the most intricate modern jazz ensemble, Irabagon builds on this foundation by adding modern classical and late-period John Coltrane to his compositional base, focusing primarily on mixed chamber ensembles to take advantage of hand-chosen musicians' voices and attitudes.

 After earning a Bachelor of Music from DePaul University, Irabagon continued his education by earning a Master of Arts from the Manhattan School of Music and completing post-graduate studies in the jazz program at Juilliard, where he received an Artist Diploma. However, Irabagon’s accomplishments do not end with his education. Irabagon was also the winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition, winner of the Rising Star award in Downbeat Magazine for both alto and tenor saxophones, and the recipient of a Philippine Presidential Award, the highest civilian honor an overseas Filipino can receive in commemoration for their contributions to the perception of Filipinos worldwide.  

As a member of a minority community who fights  against the countless times his voice has been marginalized, Irabagon's compositions rely on open dialogues with his fellow performers to create a gateway for communication and understanding. This interaction of notated material and strong improvisatory character is essential to Irabagon's musical vision. As music reporter Nate Chinen notes in his Top Performances of 2015 article, Irabagon's compositions “are drawn to the play of opposing forces, especially those involving abstraction of form.” 

 Named one of New York City's 25 Jazz Icons by Time Out New York, Irabagon composes for his ensemble Outright!, which received a 5-star Masterpiece review in Downbeat Magazine for Unhinged (2014), as well as the Jon Irabagon Trio, featuring Barry Altschul and Mark Helias, and his new quartet with Matt Mitchell, Chris Lightcap and Dan Weiss. Irabagon has been an integral part of ensembles such as the Dave Douglas Quintet, the Mary Halvorson Quintet, Septet and Octet, Barry Altschul's 3Dom Factor, Ralph Alessi's This Against That, Mostly Other People do the Killing and Uri Caine's Catbird. 

Irabagon has been an ensemble and private lesson instructor for all levels at several institutions in the New York City area, including with Jazz at Lincoln Center's Middle School Jazz Academy, as well as giving saxophone, improvisation, and composition masterclasses on four continents.

Irabagon's main focus is building his own compositional voice, as evidenced by receiving grants and commissions like The Stone at National Sawdust Commissioning Series, an Artists at Albatross Reach compositional residency, the Shifting Foundation, two French American Cultural Exchange grants, a Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grant, a South Arts Jazz Road touring grant, and an upcoming USArtists International grant. Irabagon currently runs his own imprint, Irabbagast Records, to release his own uncategorizable works as well as other cutting-edge, creative artists.

RYAN SHULTZ

ryanshultzbasstrumpet.com

Ryan Shultz is a Chicago based jazz bass trumpet player.  In addition to his own group RSQ, Shultz performs regularly with the groups of composer/percussionist Damon Short, Pianist Bob Dogan, saxophonist/composer/arranger Aaron McEver’s M13, the fusion band Crawl and the John Bany Quartet.

 Shultz has performed with saxophonists Anthony Braxton, Ari Brown, Bunky Green, Frank Wess, Dave Liebman, Rick Margitza, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Trumpeters Randy Brecker, Johnny Coles, John McNeil, Tim Hagans, Bobby Shew, Percussionists Manolo Badrena, Ray Appleton, Robby Ameen, Steve Haughton, Steve Barrios, French Hornist Tom Varner and multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan.

 Ryan Shultz has received two artistic grants from the city of Chicago for original compositions including a four movement suite for bass trumpet, cello, bass and percussion and works for solo bass trumpet, bass trumpet quintet and octet and duo with percussion.

CHAD MCCULLOUGH

chadmccullough.com

Heralded for his “solos of mercurial poetry and high craft.” (Chicago Tribune) Chicago-based trumpeter/composer Chad McCullough is active throughout the world. Dan McClenaghan writes, “He is a rare instrumentalist who makes each note sound as if it were imbued with a deeper meaning. Certainly a player with great chops, his approach is one that is measured and deliberate, often introspective, sometimes gorgeously melancholic, and one that employs a continuity of mood and atmosphere …”

His latest album, Forward was released in the Fall of 2020, and was featured in several “Best Jazz Releases of the year” lists, including the Chicago Tribune, and All About Jazz. Featuring the stellar trio of Matt Ulery, Rob Clearfield, and Jon Deitemyer, with post-production and programming by Ryan Cohan. It is on the Outside In Music label.

His bands have performed at many festivals, including the Festival of New Trumpet Music (New York), the GG Jazz Festival (Russia), Chicago Jazz Festival, The Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle), Halifax Jazz Festival, and The Appeltuin Jazz Festival (Belgium). His albums have been released internationally on Origin Records, ears&eyes records, Monks and Thieves, and Shifting Paradigm. He’s a frequent collaborator with many musicians/ensembles, including groups with; Bram Weijters, Matt Ulery, Roger Ingram, Dana Hall, Ryan Shultz, Luke Malewicz, James Davis, Rob Clearfield, and Tim Hagans and has performed with Maria Schneider, Miguel Zenon, Stafford James, Michael Shrieve, Avishai Cohen, Kendrick Scott, Claudio Roditi, Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, Charles Tolliver, Ambrose Akinmuserie, Steve Coleman, Dave Douglas, and many more.

Chad holds a M.M. from the University of Washington, and a B.M. from the University of Idaho, where he was a Lionel Hampton Scholar, and was the first student to graduate with a jazz emphasis on his degree. In 2009 he participated in the jazz & creative music workshop at the Banff Centre in Canada. He was awarded a DCASE grant for an intensive study with Grammy-nominated trumpeter Tim Hagans from the City of Chicago, and is currently on the jazz faculty at DePaul University and the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Chad plays custom AR Resonance mouthpieces and trumpets, and a Hub Van Laar flugelhorn.