Yosvany Terry

DIRECTOR OF JAZZ BANDS                                                     MONDAY BAND DIRECTOR

Yosvany Terry, Visiting Senior Lecturer on Music / Director of Jazz Bands, is an internationally acclaimed Cuban musician, American composer, saxophonist, percussionist, bandleader, educator and cultural bearer of the Afro-Cuban tradition. Born into a musical family in Camaguey, Cuba, Yosvany Terry went on to classical music training in Havana at the prestigious National School of Arts (ENA) and Amadeo Roldan Conservatory. After graduating, Terry worked with major figures in every realm of Cuban music including pianists Chucho Valdes, Frank Emilio, and the celebrated nueva trova singer/guitarist Silvio Rodriguez. From his earliest days in New York, Terry has been welcomed by the jazz and contemporary music community, playing with Branford Marsalis, Rufus Reid, Dave Douglas, Steve Coleman, Roy Hargrove, Henry Threadgill, Avishai Cohen, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Taj Mahal and Eddie Palmieri Afro-Caribbean Sextet.

His latest release, the GRAMMY Award-nominated “New Throned King” (5Passion, 2014), features music based on Arará cantos and rhythms and has been called the “musical culmination of his spiritual exploration” (All About Jazz). His previous album, “Today’s Opinion” (Criss Cross, 2012), was selected as one of the Top 10 Albums of the Year by the New York Times’ Nate Chinen. In 2015, Terry was named a recipient of the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award. He has received recent commissions by the Yerba Buena Garden Festival (“Noches de Parranda” for 12-piece ensemble with the support of The MAP Fund), the French-American Jazz Exchange (“Ancestral Memories” with pianist Baptiste Trotignon and support from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation), and the Harlem Stage (the score for the opera “Makandal”, premiering in 2015). Terry received a grant from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and New York State Music Fund to create Afro-Cuban Roots: Yedégbé, a suite of Arará music. His latest project, The Bohemian Trio, is a genre-defying contemporary music ensemble based in New York that will be releasing its first album in the fall of 2015.

Mark E. Olson

SUNDAY BAND DIRECTOR 
Director of Harvard Band and Wind Ensemble, conducts the Harvard Wind Ensemble and Sunday Jazz Band and serves as advisor to the Harvard University Band. Under his direction, the Harvard Wind Ensemble has premiered "Cumba Cumbakín" by Tania León, commissioned for the Harvard Wind Ensemble, and the Sunday Jazz Band has premiered arrangements of the music of Jim Hall, Tadd Dameron, Hank Jones, James Moody and Lee Morgan. Olson has served as Interim Conductor of the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, Guest Conductor of the Metropolitan Wind Symphony, and is currently Director of the Middlesex Concert Band. He received degrees from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN and the University of Minnesota and is an active trumpet performer as a member of the Metropolitan Wind Symphony and the New Sousa Band.