Clinics

As an educator, I am currently on teaching staff at The New School College of Performing Arts in Manhattan and have maintained a private studio of students, both in-person and remote, from around the world for over 18 years. Student clinics can cover a wide range of topics. Below is a short list of the topics most commonly covered, and I am open to any other topics that would be of interest to the program and students:

• Ensemble coaching
• Group instrumental masterclasses
• Improvisation concepts
• Music business/marketing strategies for emerging professional musicians
• Composition and arranging
• Open Q&A sessions

Students who also wish to have private lessons during the residency can be scheduled individually, time permitting.

For the big band residency, we will prepare a concert of my original music arranged for big band by myself and several esteemed colleagues. This can be augmented by any additional big band pieces the director would like to program with myself as guest soloist, as well as performances by my quartet (if involved). With the quartet, my goal is to workshop the pieces with the students, integrating my quartet with the full big band in order to switch between rhythm sections within each piece. We successfully achieved this during our residency with the Criterions Jazz Ensemble (the student ensemble) at West Chester University to great effect.

In addition to learning a concert’s worth of challenging yet accessible new music, I would also love to include an improvisatory full ensemble piece based on one of my compositions. This unique experience will give the students creative input within a big band setting, helping them gain a new awareness in listening and responding to their fellow bandmates in the process.

Please see below for selected score and video excerpts:

And Mending (c. Alex LoRe)

Skyward (c. Alex LoRe, arr. Christopher Zuar)

Vanishing Act for Maddalena Casulana, 1544-1590 (c. Alex LoRe, arr. Brian Krock)

FULL PROGRAM (without augmentation)

Skyward (c. Alex LoRe, arr. Christopher Zuar): ~ 9 min

Vanishing Act (c. Alex LoRe, arr. Brian Krock): ~ 8-9 min

Orachle (c. Alex LoRe, arr. Jonathan Ragonese): ~ 14 min

Light (c. Alex LoRe, arr. Christopher Zuar): ~ 6-7 min

Radiance II (c. Alex LoRe, group improvisation): ~ 4-6 min

Color Wheel (c. Alex LoRe, arr. Jonathan Ragonese): ~ 8 min

And Mending (c. Alex LoRe): ~ 9-10 min

Total Program Time (Approximate): 62 min

Please contact me for a variety of options and pricing, ranging from clinics and/or big band concerts featuring just myself to my full quartet. The performance fee includes a rehearsal and soundcheck with the big band before the concert. These price ranges can be tailored to fit the needs of each budget and school, if necessary.

About

Since its inception in 2015, Alex LoRe & Weirdear, comprised of saxophonist/ composer Alex LoRe, pianist Glenn Zaleski, bassist Desmond White, and drummer Allan Mednard continues to be a driving force on the NYC jazz and new music scene, striving to blur the lines between through-composed and improvised music. The group released their debut album Karol on Challenge Records International in 2019. Called “an ensemble of incredible means,” (JazzTimes), the album was praised by critics as “another awe-inspiring offering” (All About Jazz).

As the COVID-19 pandemic upended the world of live music, LoRe took the opportunity to pen an album’s worth of new music for Weirdear to explore. The new album, Evening Will Find Itself, was recorded in December of 2021 and released on Whirlwind Recordings in May of 2023. The album proved to be both points of departure and acts of arrival for LoRe: “I really wanted to trust my instincts, stretch and try some different things that made me a bit uncomfortable, primarily to push myself into different territories,” he explains. That effort —“a look at what we’ve been experiencing, and trying to configure and make sense of it all through music”—affirms Weirdear’s commitment to creativity at the highest levels.

Praised by The New York Times as a saxophonist who is “…making the connections among about 70 years’ worth of contemplative, articulate and light–toned players,” Alex LoRe is one of the most prominent alto saxophonists and composers on the New York music scene. Mentored by such masters as Lee Konitz, George Garzone, and Bunky Green, LoRe’s playing and compositions reflect a myriad of influences ranging from the contemporary classical repertoire through today’s most influential artists on both the jazz and popular music scenes. LoRe has released four albums as a leader and recorded on over two dozen albums as a side musician.

Arrangers

Jonathan Ragonese, composer-arranger-saxophonist, is the Director of Jazz Studies and Saxophone Professor at the Wells School of Music at West Chester University. As a saxophonist he has performed and recorded with a wide array of musicians including Steve Wilson, David Liebman, Jon Faddis, The Sirius Quartet, Gideon Alorwoyie, the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Tim Warfield, Tin Can Buddha and Steve Rudolph. As a composer his works have been commissioned and premiered by The New York Film Festival, saxophonist Steve Wilson, Jazz @ Lincoln Center, The Museum of Modern Art, the Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Harrisburg Symphony, the The Righteous Girls, Bucknell University, Messiah University, West Chester University and the Harrisburg Youth Symphony.

Composer/arranger Christopher Zuar’s music has been performed both nationally and internationally by the WDR Big Band (Germany), the Brussels Jazz Orchestra (Belgium), the Danish Radio Big Band (Denmark), and New York Youth Symphony Jazz among others. Zuar has garnered numerous awards and commissions, including the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer’s Award, the First Music Commission from the New York Youth Symphony, the 2016 ASCAP Johnny Mandel Prize, the 2020 Airmen of Note Sammy Nestico Award, and the 2021 Symphonic Jazz Orchestra Commissioning Prize.

Brian Krock is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader based in New York City. Krock leads the ensembles Big Heart Machine and liddle. He is the creator of the popular YouTube series “Score Study,” and is active in Broadway theatre, performing in orchestras on a multitude of woodwinds.