Cal State Fullerton School of Music faculty artist Damon Zick and his ensemble, Quarteto Nuevo, will be featured in the Western Arts Alliance Juried Showcase at the Sanctuary Theatre on the USC campus on Sept. 3.
Founded in 1967 to bring artists to venues within the thriving West Coast arts scene, the Western Arts Alliance Juried Showcase is a widely respected venue for artists and is the nation’s only multidisciplinary showcase of musicians and performers.
Zick and his quartet merge western classical, eastern European folk, Latin and jazz music to create emotionally charged soundscapes that meld together different world cultures.
Their wide-ranging musical repertoire can swing from traditional classical to jazz to Macedonian folk tunes in the span of a single concert.
Quarteto Nuevo is a past recipient of the Jazz Road Creative Residency grant from South Arts in support of their CREED Project — Compose, Research, Execute, Engage, Document — which explores the connection between jazz music and geographical or cultural locations.
The group first focused on Western states for the initial phase of the project with a long-term goal of writing movements for all 50 states.
During the group’s 2023-24 tour season, the ten compositions that now comprise the album “Jazz Road Suite: Western States” were written to invoke the unique feeling of place of each of the Western states they visited, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
Recorded live in March 2024, “Jazz Road Suite: Western States” was released this past spring.