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Credit: Courtesy of Philadelphia Sinfonia
Pianist Stanley Cowell, chair of jazz
studies at Mason Gross School of the
Arts, lends an infectious enthusiasm to
the teens and young adults he mentors in
the Philadelphia Sinfonia.
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Just as Stanley Cowell has jazz in his bones, he is a natural educator in and out of the college classroom. Using a music composition program on the laptop in his office, he plays the background strings for “Sunny’s Song,” which he wrote for his daughter. When the drum beat comes in, he spins his chair around to the Steinway piano across from his desk, explaining, “This is where the improvisation takes place.” Then, his fingers glide across the ivories with remarkable ease; the keys seem to be playing him.
Cowell, chair of jazz studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts, brings this same enthusiasm for music and teaching to his work with Philadelphia Sinfonia, a youth and young adult orchestra whose members’ ages range from 13 to 22. He and his wife, Sylvia, have supported the organization for years, and in March they helped the orchestra mount a major fundraising concert at the prestigious Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
The concert featured a special appearance by the Stanley Cowell Trio, which comprises Cowell on piano and two Mason Gross graduate students – bassist Tom DiCarlo and drummer Chris Brown. The orchestra accompanied the jazz trio on “Family Suite,” an original composition by Cowell made from two earlier recorded songs: “Sylvia’s Place,” which he wrote for his wife, and “Sunny’s Song,” originally penned as “Little Sunny” when his daughter, Sunny, was in the womb. Now 16, Sunny plays for Sinfonia as a violist.
To prepare for the performance, Cowell spent Saturdays rehearsing with the orchestra. While jazz is not an altogether new genre for the young musicians, Cowell worked with them on what he calls the “interpretive” part of playing jazz. “There are rhythmic peculiarities, certain idiomatic stylistic elements,” Cowell said. “I think I have been helpful in getting them to understand and feel and be able to perform in a jazz setting.”
Sinfonia conductor Gary White said the ability to work with a live composer is thrilling for the young musicians. “It makes the whole process of music creation to performance come to life. That it’s a crossover of classical and jazz makes
it all the more meaningful for the kids,” White said. “He’s a jazzer and he’s improvising a lot, and I think they’re fascinated by that.”
Cowell, in turn, has nothing but respect for the caliber of the musicians in the group. In fact, his involvement with Sinfonia has proven a valuable method of recruiting. Several Sinfonia students have successfully applied to Mason Gross School of the Arts, and that’s good for Rutgers. “They’re already extremely able, well-developed musicians,” Cowell said. “Sinfonia is one of the best young orchestras in the Delaware Valley.”
For the members of Sinfonia, the experience of working with one of the greatest living exponents of jazz is priceless. Cowell has composed and recorded extensively, and has performed with a long list of jazz legends, including Sonny Rollins, Clifford Jordan and Art Pepper. His stature is not lost on 17-year-old bassist Jerrell Jackson, a senior at George Washington High School in Philadelphia who plans to study musical education in college. “Being a bass player, I am going to encounter jazz more in my life, and now I can say I played with Stanley Cowell,” Jackson said. “That’s something special.”
Besides, Cowell’s energy is infectious. Fourteen-year-old violinist Madeline Gralish, the orchestra’s concertmaster and a high school freshman in Haddonfield, N.J., admires that Cowell is as excited about his profession as someone for whom music is still new. “It shows what you can do when you find something you really love,” Gralish said.
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