Lavender Jazz
Lavender Jazz Ensemble, 2011-2012
Lavender Jazz is Goshen College’s big band. The group plays classic jazz standards and styles, such as swing, blues, world beat, be-bop, hard bop, New Orleans/Dixieland, and fusion. Lavender Jazz performs two concerts in Sauder Concert Hall each academic year, and other performances in a variety of settings both on and off-campus. The ensemble varies in size from year to year and is open to by audition to any Goshen College student regardless of major.
Christopher Fashun, Director
An incredibly diverse and versatile conductor and performer, Christopher Fashun is excited to join the Music Department at Goshen College. Since 2008, he has conducted the University of Iowa Philharmonia and All-University Orchestras and was the Music Director of the St. Ambrose University Community Symphony Orchestra in Davenport, IA. In November of 2009, Mr. Fashun conducted the Symphony String Orchestra at the IMEA Conference in Ames as part of the Iowa Junior Honors String Orchestra Festival Concert. Additionally, Mr. Fashun’s conducting experience includes leading orchestras and wind bands at the high school and middle school levels and directing jazz ensembles, percussion ensembles, and drumlines at the high school level. He is an active clinician with middle and high school orchestras, percussionists, and jazz ensembles and frequently serves as an adjudicator for large group music festivals.
An accomplished percussionist and violist, he has several years of orchestral and chamber music experience and has enjoyed success in both areas as a soloist by winning three concerto competitions. During the past seven years, Mr. Fashun has concentrated his study of world percussion in Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian music and dance. Most notably, his teachers include Jorge Alabe, Michael Spiro, Mark Lamson, Curtis Pierre, Jorge Martins, and Scott Kettner. He has also toured nationally and abroad as a jazz vibraphonist and has recorded albums with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet and the Jason Harms Quartet.
Mr. Fashun holds a Bachelor of Music degree in music education from Saint Olaf College in Northfield, MN where he studied conducting with Steven Amundson and Timothy Mahr and viola with Andrea Een. He received his Masters of Music degree in percussion performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied with Anthony DiSanza and continued his conducting studies with David E. Becker. Mr. Fashun is in the final stages of completing his Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Iowa where he studies conducting with William LaRue Jones and viola with Christine Rutledge.
Audio Samples
| Title | Performed by | Composer |
|---|---|---|
| Blues in the Closet | Lavender Jazz | Oscar Pettiford |
| I’ve Got You Under My Skin | Lavender Jazz | Cole Porter |
| Nostalgia in Times Square | Lavender Jazz | Charles Mingus |
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