WHAT:

West Music Marion is proud to host a jazz workshop presented by pianist, vocalist and composer Ariel Pocock, considered to be the next major superstar in worldwide jazz music.

Ariel will cover a wide variety of topics, including the basics of improvisation and how to read charts. Kids are welcome to bring charts or music that they need help with.

About Ariel
18 year old singer and jazz pianist Ariel Pocock already has a long list of extraordinary accomplishments to her credit. In 2008, Ariel won both the Downbeat Magazine competition for outstanding solo pianist and the Lionel Hampton International Festival. In 2009, she was awarded the Outstanding Pianist and the Ella Fitzgerald Foundation Outstanding Vocalist Award at the Essentially Ellington festival at Lincoln Center. This year Downbeat named Ariel Top Jazz Vocalist in her age group. Ariel studies with Shelly Berg, has also had a chance to work with jazz masters such as Benny Green, Wycliffe Gordon, Lew Soloff, and Jeff Clayton.

In 2010, Ariel won the Kobe (Japan) Jazz Competition and performed this spring in Japan. She also opened for Sheryl Crow at the Seattle Opera House.The Seattle Times called this performance “Brilliant!.”  This year, she will be performing at the Elkhart Jazz Festival in Indiana, Music Under The Stars in Iowa, Drake University in Iowa and Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina. She will be attending the University of Miami next fall on a full scholarship to continue her work with Shelly Berg.

What people are saying about Ariel

• “She is one of the three or four most talented people I have ever worked with. For high school kids, she is absolutely number one. Amazing.” says jazz legend Lew Soloff.
• The great trombone player Wycliffe Gordon said “She is going to be a great musician. She already is.”
• Of Ariel, Shelly Berg says “The sky’s the limit.”
• After a concert in South Dakota the Rapid City Journal wrote “In Rapid City we usually see/hear musical phenoms at the end of their career. This was a chance for us to see someone great at the beginning of a career.”
• A Seattle Times headline enthused Newport’s “Ariel Pocock could be next Ellington-tapped star.”

For more information about Ariel and her accomplishments, visit her website: www.arielpocock.com
Visit KCCK's website for information on Ariel's upcoming performance at Jazz Under the Stars: www.kcck.org

WHEN:

Wednesday, August 3rd - 2:00 pm

WHERE:

West Music Marion Recital Hall
1398 Twixt Town Rd.
Cedar Rapids, IA 52302
319.377.9100

EVENT INFORMATION