The UVM School of the Arts Jazz Symposium takes place on Thursday, February 27, and Friday, February 28, celebrating the rich history and culture of jazz.

The event kicks off Thursday at 7:30 p.m. with a keynote by renowned jazz scholar Krin Gabbard, PhD, at the UVM Recital Hall. His talk "Is This Music Contentious? Duke Ellington's Paris Blues" will focus on the music composed by Ellington and Billy Strayhorn for the 1960 film. Reception to follow with refreshments and light snacks.

Then on Friday, Feb 28th, join us all day at the Alumni House (Silver Pavilion) for engaging panels featuring UVM scholars and esteemed visiting speakers. Don’t miss this opportunity to explore jazz’s enduring legacy and its deep connections to Harlem!

All events are free and open to the public. No registration required.

"As part of the SOA's Jazz Arts celebration, join us for a talk by Krin Gabbard (Stony Brook Univeristy. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote extraordinary music for the 1960 film Paris Blues, a story about two American jazz musicians working in Paris. Ellington may even have written music to express his diasappointment with a film that turned out to be very much unlike what he had been led to believe it would be. 

In 2014, Krin Gabbard retired from Stony Brooke University where he had, since 1981, taught classical literature, film studies, and literary theory. His books inlcude Psychiatry and Cinema (1987), Jammin; at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema (1996), Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture (2004), Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture (2008), and Better Git in Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles Mingus (2016). He is the editor of two anthologies, Jazz Among the Discourses and Representing Jazz (both 1995). Recently, he has taught courses at Columbia University on Jazz and American culture."