Jazz Calendar

The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra will present its 52nd Annual Christmas Concert featuring the premiere of Mark Harvey’s latest composition Peace, Good Will to All, inspired by Charles Ives and marking the 150th anniversary of his birth. The concert will also celebrate Duke Ellington’s 125th birthday year with his Sacred Concert pieces, showcasing Aardvark vocalist Grace Hughes in Tell Me It’s the Truth and Come Sunday.  Jazz-infused carols will include What Child Is This, and the band will present an Aardvark perennial, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, performed on the very first Aardvark Christmas concert in 1973.   Tickets are $20 at the door.  Proceeds will support the Poor People’s United Fund, an organization that works to alleviate the suffering of poor and homeless people in Greater Boston.

Aardvark gave its inaugural concert on December 23, 1973, at the Church of the Covenant in Boston as a benefit for the Chelsea Fire Fund.  Every year since then, Aardvark has held a Christmas concert to support a deserving cause.   Esteemed guests who have joined the Aardvark Christmas concerts include Sheila Jordan, Howard McGhee, Semenya McCord, Ron Gill,  and others.  Aardvark is: Peter H. Bloom, Phil Scarff, Chris Rakowski, Dan Zupan, Daniel Ian Smith/saxophones and woodwinds; Taylor Ho Bynum, K.C. Dunbar, Jeanne Snodgrass/trumpets; Bob Pilkington, Jay Keyser/trombones; Bill Lowe/bass trombone, tuba; Richard Nelson/guitar; Jesse Williams/string bass; Harry Wellott/drums; Grace Hughes, vocalist; and Mark Harvey, music director.  The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra is managed by Americas Musicworks, Rebecca DeLamotte, director.