FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Press Release #08-217
Don Stapleson and the St. Mary’s Jazz Combo Perform Nov. 21 at SMCM
(St. Mary’s City, MD) Nov. 12, 2008— The St. Mary’s Jazz Combo will perform on Friday, Nov. 21, at 8 p.m. in Montgomery Hall 25 at St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM). Under the direction of Don Stapleson, the Jazz Combo will perform various pieces from the jazz repertoire. This concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Music Department at 240-895-4498.
Stapleson, accomplished saxophonist and flautist, performs with his own group, The Don Stapleson Quartet, as well as with the popular classical/jazz crossover group, Allegro con Trio. He has performed with Ray Charles, Dexter Gordon, Nancy Wilson, and recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Martha Reeves. Stapleson has also appeared on MTV with Danny Gatton.
Among his other accomplishments, Stapleson has performed at the National Theater as a member of the pit orchestra during its productions of “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Cats.” He is a former member of the Peabody Ragtime Ensemble and appears as guest soloist with the Chesapeake Chamber Orchestra. Stapleson has also been heard in the orchestra at the Folger Theater during the Interact Theater productions of Noel Coward's “Private Lives” and Gilbert & Sullivan's “H.M.S. Pinafore.” His flute playing can be heard on television's “America's Most Wanted,” The National Geographic Special, “The Inca Ice Maiden,” and “The Serval Cats,” in the upcoming PBS series, “Realms of the Deep.”
Stapleson attended the Berklee College of Music and holds degrees from St. Mary's College of Maryland and the University of Maryland. He teaches saxophone and directs both the Jazz Combo and the Jazz Ensemble at SMCM.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, and Kiplinger’s. Founded in 1840 as Maryland’s “monument school” commemorating the state’s first capital, SMCM is the state’s only public honors college, offering “an Ivy-level College with a public-school price tag” (Newsweek).
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