Kimmel Center Presents Fat Tuesday Celebration w. Debut of IRVIN MAYFIELD Leading The NEW ORLEANS JAZZ ORCHESTRA, Feb. 17

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts hosts Fat Tuesday Celebration with the debut of Grammy winning Artistic Director Irvin Mayfield leading the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO)on Tuesday, February 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Verizon Hall. Founded byIrvin Mayfield in 2002, NOJO's 18-piece big band ensemble creates a jazz celebration like no other in Philadelphia with swinging, brassy big band tunes, true to New Orleans' Mardi Gras festivities. NOJO captures New Orleans' cultural authenticity and origins of Jazz, bridging its legacy with a transformative future, as part of the ongoing Jazz at the Kimmel season-long focus. Pre-show and post-show parties will be held in the Plaza featuring a roving band led by pianist Drew Nugent with free beads and masks, and Garces Events special offerings (Pre-show: 6 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.; Post-show: 9:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.).

LOCAL AUDITION CALL: Local high school jazz ensembles are invited to compete for the unique opportunity to open for Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra during the show. The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra Opener BATTLE OF THE BANDS will take place on Monday, February 2 in Commonwealth Plaza at the Kimmel Center of the Performing Arts from 11am-Noon, and will allow area high school jazz ensembles to perform one work on-stage. A jury panel will choose one ensemble to have the once-in-a-lifetime experience of opening for a legendary jazz ensemble on the Verizon Hall stage!

Irvin Mayfield is a Grammy and Billboard award-winning multi-threat musician who specializes as a trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, professor, cultural ambassador and recording artist. At 36 years-old, Mayfield speaks "Jazz" fluently as means of bringing it to the forefront of American music, and is the founding artistic director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO). NOJO was created by Mayfield when he realized that there was no institution committed solely to the business of Jazz or performing it 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the city that created it. The 18-piece band was assembled and played their first public performance in 2003. Mayfield holds several additional esteemed positions: He is a professor at the University of New Orleans, where he serves as Director of the New Orleans Jazz Institute, and he also serves as Artistic Director of Jazz at the Minnesota Orchestra.

In 2009, Mayfield entered into a historic partnership with the Royal Sonesta Hotel and created Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse, which brought "Jazz back to Bourbon Street" in the historic French Quarter. Mayfield was nominated to the National Council on the Arts by President George W. Bush and was subsequently appointed to the post by President Barack Obama in 2010. A passionate advocate for New Orleans and for the arts, Mayfield is Chairman of the Board for the Soledad O'Brien & Brad Raymond Foundation, as well as the New Orleans African American Museum of Art, Culture and History. He is also Chairman Emeritus of the New Orleans Public Library and serves on the boards of Louisiana State University's Department of Psychiatry and Health Science, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation, Tulane University's School of Architecture, Unity of Greater New Orleans, the Urban Libraries Council, and the Youth Rescue Initiative.

"...the orchestra is the only major performing Jazz institution in post-Katrina New Orleans and has become the most prominent representative of Jazz culture in the Big Easy..."-METROMODE

New Orleans Jazz Orchestra made history on November 17, 2005 when they symbolically reopened New Orleans with the performance of a piece composed by Mayfield, All the Saints, at Christ Church Cathedral. This commission served New Orleans as the first major cultural event inside the city post-Katrina. As a non-profit organization, NOJO has forged an academic partnership with the University of New Orleans, where it oversees the New Orleans Jazz Institute (NOJI). NOJO inspires freedom and culture in the individual and the global community by creating authentic, engaging Jazz experiences that celebrate the origins and transform the future of Jazz. As a performing arts organization, their goal is to strengthen the business of Jazz through performances, tours, recordings, education and media platforms. NOJO is the first and only performing arts institution committed solely to the development of an Industry for Jazz in the city that created it. NOJO has headlined all of America's major performing arts venues and clubs and produced the first local, ticketed Jazz Concert Series in the history of New Orleans. NOJO's latest album, BOOK ONE on World Village, a subsidiary of the Harmonia Mundi label, won the 2010 Grammy Award for "Best Large Jazz Ensemble." NOJO recently celebrated their 10-year anniversary with The NOJO 10, a series that featured events at Preservation Hall, Tipitina's, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and even New York City's prestigious Carnegie Hall.

Tickets are available from $29-$69. Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org, at the Kimmel Center box office at Broad & Spruce Streets (open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.)

For more information about Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra visit

Official Websites: www.irvinmayfield.com | www.thenojo.com

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