Trumpeter/Flugelhornist Claudio Roditi to Kick Off 2016-17 'Music in the Moonlight' Series at Luna Stage

On Sunday, October 23, at 7pm, Claudio Roditi opens the Luna Stage 2016-2017 "Music in the Moonlight" jazz series, with Brazilliance. Roditi will highlight his original compositions, including "The Monster and the Flower", "Piccolo Blues", and "Ballad for JGL". He will be accompanied on keyboards by Matt King, a Thelonius Monk International Jazz Piano Competition finalist, who has performed with such artists as bassist Rufus Reid, drummer Billy Hart, and guitarist Vic Juris.

Tickets for the concert are $18 in advance; $20 at the door. To order tickets, call (973) 395-5551 or log onto lunastage.org.

In 2009, Brazilian trumpeter/flugelhornist Claudio Roditi earned a Grammy nomination for his Resonance album, Brazilliance x 4, a release that featured four Roditi originals as well as compositions by some of his favorite Brazilian musicians/songwriters such as Raul de Souza and Victor Assis. His latest Resonance release, Bon Amigos, also features several Roditi originals in addition to selections written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Johnny Alf, guitarist/composer Toninho Horta, and pianist Eliane Elias.

Allmusic.com has called Roditi "as literate a player as there is on the trumpet and flugelhorn. Roditi's influences, stemming from Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, and Freddie Hubbard, are evident, but a sweet patience and virtue that he owns has been the distinctive difference." The Chicago Reader's Neil Tesser once wrote that, "I can think of only a handful of modern trumpeters who combine brain and soul, technique and wisdom in a way that matches Roditi's."

Luna Stage is a small but mighty professional theatre company located in Essex County, NJ, just under 15 miles from New York City. Throughout the past 24 years, the company has earned a national reputation for developing and producing outstanding new plays and timely revivals and for taking on challenging and provocative subject matters in their work.

The "Music in the Moonlight" jazz concerts, currently in its sixth season, is curated by New Jersey Jazz Society Board member Sandy Josephson. The 2016-2017 season will feature concerts by vocalist Vanessa Perea, December 11, 2016; guitarist Paul Meyers/World on a String, February 26, 2017; and tenor saxophonist/flutist Don Braden, April 30, 2017. The "Music in the Moonlight" series is sponsored by The Bob Cole Family Fund in memory of the great 20th century composer.

A proud member of Valley Arts, Luna Stage is located at 555 Valley Road, West Orange, NJ 07052. The theatre is handicapped accessible and offers assistive listening devices.