Released: July 1, 1999

DiMartino to tour with Boston Pops

DANVILLE, KY- Vince DiMartino, virtuoso trumpet player and professor of music at Centre College, will appear as a guest soloist with the Boston Pops orchestra in a nationally televised concert this month and then go on tour with the group in August.

In a concert scheduled to air Saturday, July 10, at 7 p.m. [Eastern time] on Kentucky Educational Television, DiMartino will play popular tunes from the 1940s era of swing music, including "You Made Me Love You" and "Trumpet Blues and Cantabile." One month later, from Aug. 5-15, he will travel with the Pops for a series of live concerts focused on the swing era.

DiMartino says all of his solos will feature the works of Harry James, one of the leading trumpet players of the 1940s. James was married to actress Betty Grable but is best known as a composer and performer.

In the televised concert, DiMartino will be paired up with jazz singer Ann Hampton Callaway. That concert was taped earlier this month in Boston and will air on Public Broadcasting Service stations throughout the country on dates that will vary according to local programming schedules.

The August tour will take DiMartino and the Pops to major performance venues including Wolftrap near Washington, D.C., and Chastain Park in Atlanta, along with sites in Michigan, Connecticut and New Jersey.

DiMartino has performed worldwide as a soloist and with artists such as Doc Severinsen, Pearl Bailey and Dizzy Gillespie. Equally adept with jazz and classical works, he has soloed with symphony orchestras, including those in Santa Fe, Orlando and Rochester. He is prominently featured in many recordings of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. DiMartino originally developed a friendship and working relationship with Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart when both of them had a guest appearance in Cincinnati.

This year DiMartino was the featured performer for the International Trumpet Guild, which produced a custom compact disc of his work for distribution worldwide to 7,500 ITG members. He recently was named president-elect of the group.

DiMartino was a founder of the New Columbian Brass Band, which has recorded a number of CDs. He is a frequent soloist with the New Sousa Band and is a popular performer at the Great American Brass Band Festival, which annually draws 40,000 people to Danville and the campus of Centre College.

A graduate of the Eastman School of Music (bachelor's and master's degrees), DiMartino joined Centre in 1993 as the college's first distinguished artist-in-residence. He was named W. George Matton Professor of Music in 1996.

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Vince DiMartino's personal Web page: http://web.centre.edu/~mus/faculty/vince/index.html

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Centre College
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Danville, KY 40422

Coordinator of Public Information: Patsi Barnes Trollinger
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