Add two more Grammy Awards to the hardware collected by Teachers College graduates.
Trumpet player Louis Hanzlik (Ed.D ‘10) earned his first Grammy for his work on Emanon, the Wayne Shorter Quartet and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra 2018 release cited by Grammy voters as the year’s Best Jazz Instrumental album.
Eric Oberstein (MA ’09) picked up Grammy number five, this time in the Latin Jazz category for the production of Back to Sunset, the debut album of Dafnis Prieto Big Band.
“I’m on a streak, said Oberstein, whose past credits as a producer include The Offense of the Drum by the Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra – named the Best Latin Jazz Album of 2015.
Oberstein, who earned his TC degree in Arts Administration, was recently named the Interim Director, Duke Performances at his undergraduate alma mater, Duke University.
Hanzlik, a doctoral graduate of TC’s program in Music & Music Education, likewise juggles a professional performance schedule with duties as an Associate Professor of Trumpet at the University of Connecticut, and also as a member of the faculty at The Julliard School (where he earned a Master’s Degree) and the Aspen Music Festival & School.
Every album is like a child you raise since birth. And each one is special.”
—Eric Oberstein
Emanon was written by the 85-year-old Shorter, the saxophonist and composer who broke in with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and became known for his work with Miles Davis, Weather Report and Joni Mitchell.
An auditory and visual reflection on a “rogue philosopher” (it includes a companion graphic novel), Emanon continued to break new ground.
Rolling Stone praised the three-set recording for “combining bold orchestral statements with the mercurial spontaneity of Shorter’s remarkable long-running quartet.”
“It has musicians who traditionally work in defined parameters working with musicians who are not-so-defined,” said Hanzlik. “That’s what makes it so cool.”
In addition to his work with Orpheus, headquartered at Riverside Church, Hanzlik performs nationally and internationally with the American Brass Quintet.
Back to Sunset marks the first collaboration between Oberstein and Prieto, the Cuban-born drummer and MacArthur Genius grant recipient, with a 17-piece orchestra in an album singled out by All About Jazz for a “irrepressible energy” that is “chock full of rhythmic detours that maximize the talents of the band.”
Reflecting on his remarkable stretch of artistic and commercial successes, Oberstein said, “Every album is like a child you raise since birth. And each one is special.”