Eugene Marlow, Ph.D. Eugene Marlow is an award-winning composer/arranger, producer, presenter, performer, author, journalist, and educator who has written 240+ classical and jazz compositions for solo instruments, jazz and classical chamber groups, and jazz big band. Under his indie MEII Enterprises label, he has previously produced nine CDs of original compositions and arrangements. He is the founder and leader (piano) of The Heritage Ensemble, a quintet that performs his arrangements and original compositions of Hebraic melodies in various jazz, Afro-Caribbean, Brazilian, and classical styles. The Ensemble’s latest album, “Mosaica,” was released on November 9, 2014, coincident with the 76th Anniversary of Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass.” Three of Marlow’s big band charts appear on several Grammy-nominated albums. “El Aché de Sanabria” appears on Bobby Sanabria’s Grammy-nominated album “Big Band Urban Folktales” (2007 Jazzheads). His reconstruction and arrangement of “Me Acuerdo De Ti,” originally recorded by Tito Puente and Celia Cruz, appears on the Latin-Grammy nominated “Tito Puente Masterworks Live!” recorded by the Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra (Jazzheads 2011). “Broken Heart” appears on the 2012 Grammy-nominated “Multiverse” album, also from Maestro Sanabria (Jazzheads 2012). “Let There Be Swing” appears on the recently released “Que Viva Harlem” album featuring the Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra (Jazzheads 2014). This album received 4 ½ stars from Downbeat. Marlow is senior co-chair of the Milt Hinton Jazz Perspectives Concert Series at Baruch College (The City University of New York), now in its 22nd season, where he teaches courses in media and culture. Author of 11 books and 375+ articles, he is a 2010 recipient of the James W. Carey award for journalism excellence from the Media Ecology Association for his numerous contributions to www.jazz.com. He has completed a draft of a book on jazz in China entitled Jazz in the Land of the Dragon. He has been a voting member of The Recording Academy since 2006. Janet Lawson/Lyricist Born in Baltimore to a family of professional musicians, Janet Lawson made her singing debut at the age of three and in her teens performed with big bands. After moving to New York, she began her studies with distinguished composer/arranger Hall Overton and made her debut appearance at the Village Vanguard with the Art Farmer Quartet. Throughout her career she has appeared with, among other jazz greats, Duke Ellington, Tommy Flanagan, Joe Newman, Barney Kessel, Milt Hinton, Ron Carter, Barry Harris, Dave Liebman, David and Lida Baker, Rufus Reid, Clark Terry, Billy Higgins, Cedar Walton, and Bob Dorough. Lawson was soprano soloist with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre in Blood Memories at City Center, New York, and composed and created, with lyricist Diane Snow, the musical “Jass is a Lady,” supported by NEA and ASCAP Theatre Workshop and produced by Playwrights Horizons in New York City. Lawson has appeared at major New York jazz clubs and has toured the US, Canada and the Far East. She performs mostly in Europe at festivals and clubs, including the Jazz Cafe in London, the Duc des Lombards in Paris, the Copenhagen Jazz House in Denmark with The Very Big Band, plus concerts and clubs throughout Latvia and Lithuania. Her group, the Janet Lawson Quintet, has recorded two albums, The Janet Lawson Quintet, which earned her a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Performance-Female (On a short list of jazz vocalists nominated for a first album, she lost to Ella Fitzgerald), and Dreams Can Be. Cambria Master Recordings recently excerpted the albums for the new CD, The Janet Lawson Quintet, and in 2001, Celeste, a Japanese label, released two CDs of her earlier works plus recordings with David Lahm on Palo Alto's Real Jazz for the Folks Who Feel Jazz and Eddie Jefferson on Inner City’s The Main Man. Lawson is widely recognized for her impeccable musicianship and free-spirited, swinging improvisation. Her commitment to improvisation, the essence of jazz, and her later studies with tenor sax master Warne Marsh nourished her conception of the voice as an instrument. This dedication to the musicianship of singers led her to extending her voice into the field of jazz education. A gifted teacher of vocal jazz technique and self-expression, Lawson has conducted clinics throughout the world and master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, Berklee College of Music, Indiana University at Bloomington, City Stages in Birmingham, Alabama, and the University of Calgary, and has taught at Jamey Aebersold’s jazz camp, and at IAJE with Patty Coker and Berklee's Bob Stoloff. Lawson headed the Vocal Jazz program at Wm. Paterson in Wayne, New Jersey, from 1981 to 1988. She is one of the founders of the Vocal Department at the New School, where she is currently Adjunct Professor of Vocal Jazz. She has been a rostered artist in the Pennsylvania Arts in Education (Artist in Residency) Programs since 1990. Lawson was the first jazz vocalist to offer master classes in Latvia and created the Vocal Jazz Program at the prestigious Teacher's Training Academy in Riga, Latvia, which now offers degrees in Vocal Jazz. Lawson is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York and Pennsylvania Councils on the Arts, and ArtsLink. She was co-awarded the New School’s Collaborative Project Award with Adjunct Professor of Visual Arts Craig Houser. Lawson is listed in the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and the All Music Guide to Jazz, and included in Leslie Gourse’s book Louis’ Children and in Scott Yanow’s new book The Jazz Singers. After a lengthy illness that prevented her from singing, Lawson is recovering and has returned to living, gigging and teaching in New York, where her spirit was first nourished by the music and musicians she loves. She wrote a book -- The Integrated Artist: Improvisation as a Way of Life – about her journey to recovery, which will be published in Latvia, and she is working on a soon-to-be-published children’s book and accompanying CD about the history of jazz, Grandma Sage and her Magic Music Room, with story and original music co-written with renowned composer and author, Carman Moore. And she continues to foster the vision of jazz singing as ‘a musician’s expression with your voice as your axe.’ Stanley Crouch, noted critic and journalist, says, “. . . Janet Lawson is a true musician . . . up next to the musicians with whom she’s working on an equal level.” Shira Lissek/Vocalist Named Shira, the Hebrew word for song, Shira Lissek has sung to the delight of audiences since she was 4 years old. At 16 she sang the national anthem at a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game and by 18 was leading Jewish High Holiday services for thousands. A graduate of Indiana University School of Music and Manhattan School of Music, Ms. Lissek went on to sing leading roles in regional opera companies including Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Seattle Opera), Mimi in La Boheme and Nedda in Pagliacci (The Philadelphia Kimmel Center) and The Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro (Bronx Opera). She sang premieres of operas by Carlisle Floyd (The Center For Contemporary Opera), Peter Westergard (Center City Opera Theater), and Antonio Vivaldi (Teatro Instabile). In the musical theatre world, Ms. Lissek performed 656 shows of the American Girl Revue in New York. She was featured in pops concerts singing An Evening with Irving Berlin, A Musical Tribute to Barbra Streisand, Andrew Lloyd Webber Unmasked and Broadway Blockbusters with the Gulf Coast Symphony. With The Klezmer Company Orchestra she sang traditional Jewish repertoire with a twist in Salsa Strings and Swing and Beyond the Tribe. She has sung at venues in New York including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, The Laurie Beechman Theater, The Triad, The Duplex, The Iridium Jazz Club, and Riverside Church. She served as the Cantor of Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn Heights, NY from 2007-2014. She is now the Assistant Cantor at the famed Park Avenue Synagogue, New York City.