IAJE to Honour Oscar Peterson

jazz music news, Canada

Jazz Piano Legend Paid Tribute at Conference

The International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) annual conference will be held in Toronto in January, and has announced that Canadian jazz legend Oscar Peterson will be paid tribute at the gala concert and awards ceremony. The event is slated to take place Friday, January 11 at the Toronto Convention Centre.

The Canada Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts (the national arts funding agency in the United States), will co-host the tribute to Dr. Peterson during the ceremony that honours the recipients of the 2008 NEA Jazz Master Fellowship. Honourees include bandleader and composer Quincy Jones, composer and arranger Tom McIntosh, trumpeter Joe Wilder, pianist Andrew Hill, percussionist Candido Camero and jazz advocate Gunther Schuller.

The tribute will include a special presentation by Canada Council Chair Karen Kain and NEA Chair Dana Gioia. During the ceremony Dr. Peterson’s work will be performed by pianist and composer Oliver Jones, a former student of the great piano master.

Dr. Oscar Peterson was born in Montreal and began playing at the age of five. He made his international debut at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York in 1949, and has since received seven Grammy Awards and inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1978. Dr. Peterson received the Order of Canada in 1972 and promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 1984.

The IAJE conference, last held in Toronto in 2001, is expected to attract more than 7,000 musicians, educators, record executives, exhibitors, media and jazz enthusiasts from all over the world.

for more information visit www.iaje.org