Soprano Olivia Hairston, a graduate student at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, took home the Grand Prize of $5,000 from the 2009 Indiana Campus Super Star competition April 19 at the historic Madame Walker Theatre in downtown Indianapolis.

Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music will host its annual Big Band Extravaganza Saturday, April 25, at 8 p.m. in the Musical Arts Center. This year's concert, titled "When Swing Was King," will present music from many of the most famous bands of the Swing Era, including those of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, performed by two outstanding student big bands led by IU jazz faculty members David Baker and Brent Wallarab.

Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music will host its annual Big Band Extravaganza Saturday, April 25, at 8 p.m. in the Musical Arts Center. This year's concert, titled "When Swing Was King," will present music from many of the most famous bands of the Swing Era, including those of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and Benny Goodman, performed by two outstanding student big bands led by IU jazz faculty members David Baker and Brent Wallarab. Returning by popular demand are two exceptional jazz vocalists, Delores King Williams and Everett Greene, who performed in the concert last year.

Widely respected bassist Jeremy Allen has been appointed assistant professor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Department of Jazz Studies, beginning Fall 2008. He has served as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Jazz Studies at the Jacobs School since 2006.

Maureen McGovern's 35-year career includes recordings, concerts, Broadway, theater, films, television, radio and composing, all with a voice that defies categorization. Her collaborations with Indiana University Professor Steve Houghton, faculty and students from the IU Jacobs School of Music and regional professionals will include a hard-swinging big band, followed by a studio orchestra playing the beautiful sounds of the Great American Songbook at 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8, in the Musical Arts Center, as the IU Summer Music Festival draws to a close.

The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music announced today (May 1) that Brent Wallarab -- a jazz performer, teacher, researcher, Jacobs School alumnus and artistic director of the Buselli Wallarab Jazz Orchestra -- has been appointed to the jazz faculty.

An Indiana University professor from the Jacobs School of Music was recenetly recognized as a living legend among jazz artists. IU Jacobs School of Music's Distinguished Professor David N. Baker was among those included in the roster of musicians who received their "Living Jazz Legend Award" for lifetime achievement. The award is one of many accolades Baker has received in his extraordinary career.

Move over Mary J. Blige and Justin Timberlake. Step aside Red Hot Chili Peppers. Some red hot musicians from Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music are ready to crash the Grammy Awards. With one legendary faculty member and a host of alums competing, the school will be heavily represented at the annual awards ceremony, to be held on Feb. 11.

Distinguished Professor David N. Baker, chair of the Jazz Studies Department, received the Tracy M. Sonneborn Award for 2006 on Thursday, September 7. The annual award recognizes an IU faculty member who has achieved international recognition for work as a performer, composer, scholar, and educator. With an extraordinary career as composer, jazz pedagogue, performer, and national arts leader, Baker continues to inspire students, faculty colleagues, and alumni, as well as musicians and arts leaders around the world.

A new composition by Indiana University Distinguished Professor of Music David Baker will incorporate audience members' cell phones in order to create a shared participatory performance experience. Baker's Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra is scheduled to kick off the 20th anniversary season of the Chicago Sinfonietta on Oct. 1 and 2 under the direction of Maestro Paul Freeman.

The IU Jacobs School of Music has assembled the crème de la crème of the Indiana jazz world, and beyond, to form a new ensemble to add to the already impressive ranks of its Summer Music Festival. The Festival Jazz Orchestra, directed by IU jazz legend David Baker, makes its debut on Friday, June 30, at 8 p.m. in the university's Musical Arts Center. "The assemblage of such top-flight jazz talent into one performance group is unprecedented since I've been here," said Baker, "and I've been here since 1949!"

The Indiana University School of Music will host a benefit concert for the victims of Hurricane Katrina on Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. in the Musical Arts Center. "A Benefit for New Orleans: The Cradle of Jazz" will feature the IU Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Distinguished Professor of Music David Baker along with IU alumna and Grammy Award-winning soprano Sylvia McNair and Distinguished Professor of Music and renowned baritone Timothy Noble. All proceeds raised from the benefit concert will be given to the Red Cross in support of its efforts to assist New Orleans refugees.

Indiana University musicians are prepared to sing -- and play -- the praises of their newly inaugurated leader, President Adam W. Herbert. The university community will come together with music, a cornerstone of academic and artistic excellence at IU for more than half a century.

Legendary jazz masters Vernice "Bunky" Green and David Baker, and Indiana University President Adam W. Herbert, haven't always traveled the same roads, and yet there is a strong bond that connects them. Each is, in his own right, a major player in educating and inspiring America's youth. Green and Baker will perform a free concert on Wednesday evening (April 14) to celebrate the next day's inauguration of Herbert as IU's 17th president.

IU's David Baker and several of his fellow Indianapolis jazz masters will revisit Indiana Avenue, the heart of the Indianapolis jazz scene of the 1930s and '40s, in a Feb. 28 concert at the John Waldron Arts Center auditorium in Bloomington.