UWSP Jazz Ensemble featured at Winchester Academy Gala
This year’s Winchester Academy fund-raising party at Waupaca’s Ale House on Friday evening, April 20 will feature the acclaimed UWSP Jazz Ensemble, offering memorable Big Band hits as well as classic jazz.
A ticket price of $50 buys a full-course buffet dinner, first-class music, dancing, and a chance to bid on unique silent auction items and services. It also includes a $25 tax-deductible gift in support of Waupaca’s Winchester Academy. Tickets may be purchased at the door, but reservations will be appreciated. Call 715-256-1638 or 715-256-1312.
The Ale House is on Foxfire Drive, just off of State Highway 54, west of Waupaca.
Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. with music, a cash bar, and the opportunity to view auction items. The dinner buffet will begin at 6:00. Leisurely dining, dancing, mingling with friends, enjoying both mellow and jazzy music, alternating with repeated silent bidding will stretch out the evening, climaxing with close of the auction and announcement of the successful bids.
The dinner menu will include barbequed ribs and chicken with appetizers and relishes, cheeses, salads, hot sides, fruits, and breads. An ice cream sundae bar will invite diners to build their own dessert.
The silent auction includes framed original works of art (one by Theresa Drinka); two nights at the Crystal River Inn B&B; 100 envelopes each stamped with 45 cents worth of old commemorative stamps; two gourmet dinners; a rare Chinese feather painting of cranes; a maple ladderback chair with caned seat; a four-seasons contract for homemade pies, one for each season; a trio of Marian Anderson memorabilia from a 1951 concert; packets of note papers called “Uncle Toadie’s Doodles,” reproducing the whimsical art of teacher-artist Waupaca native Joe Weatherbee; plus a variety of gift baskets and gift certificates from Waupaca businesses.
Director of the award-winning UWSP Jazz Ensemble is Matt Buchman, professor and director of jazz studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. As an undergraduate student at Lawrence University under professor Fred Sturm, he studied jazz piano with John Harmon. As director of the Jazz Ensemble he has worked with Bobby McFerrin and Wynton Marsalis, among many other greats. He has toured all over the U.S., Canada and Europe, and performed twice on Wisconsin Public radio’s Live from the Elvehjem. He is also artistic director for the Riverfront Jazz Festival in Stevens Point held on Labor Day weekend – the largest jazz festival in Central Wisconsin.
The Winchester Academy in Waupaca brings free, intellectually stimulating and informative programs to a community that spans Stevens Point, Plover, Wautoma and the Fox Valley. More than 20 free programs a year serve the public’s wish for continued intellectual growth, and provide a lay audience to Wisconsin’s scholars and others with developed expertise. It is unique in small Wisconsin communities, and has earned a Governor’s Award for Programming in the Humanities.