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Join us for our weekly CoPA Artist Hour, featuring a performance with members of the College of Performing Arts Music community. 

Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom has been developing her unique voice on the soprano saxophone for over 40 years. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz. Winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition, the Downbeat International Critics Poll & Jazz Journalists Association Award for soprano saxophone, the Mary Lou Williams Award for lifetime service to jazz and the Charlie Parker Fellowship for jazz innovation. She is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid: 6083janeirabloom). Her critically acclaimed Cd “Early Americans” received a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and made numerous year end best lists. Her latest release Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson which pairs her jazz quartet with poetry by Dickinson was cited as one of the year’s best CDs by NPR. Bill Milkowski has described Bloom as "true jazz original...a restlessly creative spirit, and a modern day role model for any aspiring musician who dares to follow his or her own vision."

NYC-based drummer/teacher/composer Allison Miller engages her deep roots in improvisation as a vehicle to explore all music. Described by critics as a “Modern Jazz Icon in the Making,” Miller won DownBeat’s 67th Annual Critics Poll “Rising Star Drummer” and JazzTimes’s 2019 Critics Poll for “Best Jazz Drummer.” Boom Tic Boom, Allison’s longtime band, won Jazz Journalists Association’s 2019 award for “Best Mid-Sized Ensemble.” Her composition, “Otis Was a Polar Bear,” is included on NPR’s list of The 200 Greatest Songs by 21st Century Women+. She is also the first recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Commissioning Grant. She premiered this multi-media commission, Rivers In Our Veins, in January 2020 with a seven concert tour featuring her critically acclaimed band, Boom Tic Boom, tap dancer, Claudia Rahardjanoto, and video designer, Todd Winkler.

Miller, a three time Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department, was Monterey Jazz Festival’s 2019 Artist in Residence, alongside bassist/producer Derrick Hodge. Simultaneously Boom Tic Boom celebrated it’s 10th anniversary with the release of their 5th album, Glitter Wolf, which was included in many “Best Jazz Of 2019” lists, including NPR, Rolling Stone and JazzTimes magazine.  The band has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe and Asia as well as being featured on such programs as NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Tiny Desk with Bob Boilen, WNYC’s Soundcheck and New Sounds with John Schaefer, and Jazz Night in America with Christian McBride.

Allison is part-time faculty at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music (where she is a Melba Liston Fellow), Stanford Jazz Workshop, Centrum, Geri Allen Jazz Camp, and is the Artistic Director of Jazz Camp West. She has been appointed Arts Envoy to Thailand for her work with Jazz Education Abroad and endorses Yamaha drums, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth heads, Evans drumheads and Sunhouse percussion.