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Steven Feifke

Heralded a “masterful pianist” by JAZZIZ Magazine, award-winning Yamaha Performing Artist, bandleader and composer Steven Feifke is one of the most in-demand artists of his generation. A two-time semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition, Feifke has been featured on stages around the world alongside premiere artists including Steve Tyrell, Randy Brecker, Chad LB and Veronica Swift, with an impressive performance history at recognized venues like the Blue Note, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, Birdland, Times Square and Rockefeller Center. International tours across Europe, Africa and Asia along with an extensive discography of over 30 albums all before turning 30 have established Feifke’s name as a global presence in jazz. Feifke is an internationally recognized arranger and orchestrator, and has written commissioned works for notables like the Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra featuring Sean Jones and John Faddis, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra with Ken Peplowski, the Malmo Big Band with Katie Thiroux, and the New Generation Festival with Orchestra Senzaspine and Dominick Farinacci. He is the recipient of the 2020 David Baker Prize in composition from the Ravinia Festival and serves as musical director for the Tony Award Winning actor and singer Santino Fontana. His writing work also branches into film and television, where Feifke’s compositions and orchestrations have been prominently featured on such hit TV shows as Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on Netflix, Impractical Jokers on TruTV, Animaniacs on Hulu, and the 2016 award-winning animated short Solo. His 2020 big band album “KINETIC” on Outside in Music marks Feifke’s studio big band debut, featuring an 18-piece ensemble made up of players from the frontline of the contemporary jazz scene like Ulysses Owens Jr, Veronica Swift, and Lucas Pino. A respected educator, Feifke sits on faculty at The New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, and has appeared as a guest lecturer and guest artist at educational institutions around the US like New York University, Yale University, Williams College, Moravian College, Northern Illinois University, and more. Additionally, he has been a dedicated participant of educational programs like Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz for Young People, the Catskill Jazz Factory, and Rockport Jazz Workshop. Feifke is the Co-Founder of A Step Ahead Jazz, an online music education platform offering comprehensive programs and tailored instruction to musicians of all ages and abilities, alongside alto saxophonist Alexa Tarantino. Feifke holds a Bachelor's Degree from New York University and a Master’s Degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with true luminaries of composition and orchestration, Gil Goldstein and Jim McNeely.

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Album Review

Vanessa Racci: Jazzy Italian

Read "Jazzy Italian" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


Vanessa Racci describes herself a jazz / cabaret singer of Italian-American descent with a passion for retro jazz and music made famous by Italian Americans. She has a previous album, entitled Italiana Fresca (2017, self-produced), and currently performs several shows that celebrate American jazz composers, Italian American music and contributions to jazz and pop in the US. She is a competent and entertaining singer, lively, and, by the video evidence, vivacious. She may not exactly lead a listener to forget ...

Album Review

Steven Feifke: The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra

Read "The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Metti assieme un talentoso giovane orchestratore come Steven Feifke, un trombettista di prima grandezza come Bijon Watson e una big band con grandi nomi e prestigiosi ospiti e il risultato è scontato. Il debutto della Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra è stato propiziato dalla collaborazione col Jazz Education Network ed ha assunto le vesti di un album includendo in organico ospiti di rilievo come Kurt Elling, Sean Jones e Chad Lefkowitz Brown. Il principale riferimento è la tradizione ...

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Album Review

Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra: The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra

Read "The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra, co-led by pianist/composer Steven Feifke and trumpeter par excellence Bijon Watson, is a seventeen-member ensemble comprising seasoned players paired with young lions who are poised to capture pride of place. Nowhere do the leaders say who is in which group, and it would be impolitic to name them here. Suffice to say that some of the names may be more familiar than others--as, for example, trombonist John Fedchock who cut his teeth with one of ...

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Interview

Steven Feifke: Kinetic

Read "Steven Feifke: Kinetic" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


In terms of physics, kinetic energy is described as a force or power which a body or object possesses by virtue of being in motion. With reference to the aptly named debut from the Steven Feifke Big Band, that ideal is fully applicable. Kinetic, recorded in early 2019 and released in April of 2021, capitalizes on and associates strongly with its taken concept. Showcasing Feifke's skills with pen and piano, and highlighting the work of many of his rising-star peers, ...

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Album Review

Steven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic

Read "Kinetic" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Jazz connoisseurs who lean toward big bands that swing as earnestly and often as the renowned architects of the epic big-band era should find plenty to cheer about on Kinetic, the debut recording by New York-based pianist, composer and arranger Steven Feifke's audacious and fiery ensemble. This is a band that fires on all cylinders—but it couldn't even leave the garage unless Feifke supplied the fuel. With one exception (noted below), Feifke's intense and high-powered charts neatly pave the way, ...

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Album Review

Steven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic

Read "Kinetic" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Assimilare la tradizione per poi creare cose originali. È questo il percorso che hanno seguito e continuano a seguire i musicisti jazz, in forme e approfondimenti diversi. A 30 anni esatti il pianista Steven Feifke è ancora al primo passo ma in questo scintillante debutto orchestrale dimostra di avere tutte le carte in regola per sviluppare percorsi originali. Kinetic è infatti un esempio del miglior modern mainstream orchestrale, elaborato sulle lezioni di Thad Jones e Mel Lewis, ...

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Album Review

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown: Quartet Sessions

Read "Quartet Sessions" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The Quartet Sessions (there are two of them) mark the eighth recording as leader by New York-based tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, an heir-apparent to an acclaimed dynasty of hard-boppers whose monarchs include Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Gene Ammons, Charlie Rouse, Hank Mobley, Sonny Rollins and their peers, and embraces such contemporaries as Eric Alexander, Don Menza and Josh Redman, among others. In fact, it's hard to listen to Lefkowitz-Brown (or Chad LB, as he is often called), especially on the ...

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Award / Grant

New England Conservatory Alums Win Grammy Awards

New England Conservatory Alums Win Grammy Awards

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications

New England Conservatory (NEC) alumna Stephanie Economou (‘12 Composition) made history Sunday night as the first-ever winner of the Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media for “Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök." As the only woman nominated in the category, this award puts Stephanie at the forefront of an exciting new era of recognition of non-traditional forms of composition. During her time at NEC, Stephanie studied with award-winning composers and educators Kati Agócs, John ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Generation Gap...

Cellar Records
2022

buy

Jazzy Italian

Zoho Music
2022

buy

Kinetic

Outside in Music
2021

buy

Quartet Sessions

Self Produced
2021

buy

Clarity

Posi-Tone Records
2020

buy

Seven Angels

Outside in Music
2020

buy

Videos

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