Bronxville's own Lawrence Dutton

By Kathleen Suss, Executive Director, Concordia Conservatory

April 19, 2023: Concordia Conservatory announces the Hoch Chamber Music Series concert, Bach to Brazil, on Saturday, April 29 at 7:00 pm at The Reformed Church of Bronxville, 180 Pondfield Road.

Artistic Director Lawrence Dutton is joined by guest artists bassist John Patitucci, pianist James Lowe, and the John Patitucci Trio with Rogerio Boccat, percussion and Yotam Silberstein, guitar. The program includes music by J. S. Bach, Schubert, and Dutilleux and a second half of jazz with Brazilian influence by the John Patitucci Trio.

James Lowe

CLICK HERE for tickets.

About the Artists

John Patitucci was born in Brooklyn, New York and began playing the electric bass at age ten. He began performing and composing at age 12, and added the acoustic bass and piano to his repertoire as a teenager. He quickly moved from playing soul and rock to blues, jazz and classical music. His eclectic tastes allowed him to explore all types of music as a player and a composer.

John studied classical bass at San Francisco State University and Long Beach State University. He continued his career in Los Angeles as a studio musician and a jazz artist. John has played on countless albums with artists such as B. B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, George Benson, Dizzy Gillespie, Was Not Was, Dave Grusin, Natalie Cole, Bon Jovi, Sting, Queen Latifah and Carly Simon. In 1986, John was voted by his peers as the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences MVP on Acoustic Bass.

John has performed around the world with his own band and with jazz luminaries Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Stan Getz, Pat Metheny, Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Michael Brecker, McCoy Tyner, Nancy Wilson, Randy Brecker, Freddie Hubbard, Tony Williams, Hubert Laws, Hank Jones, Mulgrew Miller, James Williams, Kenny Werner and scores of others. Some of the many pop and Brazilian artists he has played with include Sting, Aaron Neville, Natalie Cole, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Milton Nascimiento, Astrud and Joao Gilberto, Airto and Flora Purim, Ivan Lins, Joao Bosco and Dori Caymmi.

John has also worked with film composers Jerry Goldsmith, Ry Cooder, James Newton Howard, Dave Grusin, Henry Mancini, John Williams, Mark Isham, Michel Colombier, Carter Burwell and Howard Shore and many others.

John has always felt a calling to mentor and teach young musicians and to help further and sustain the art of jazz and bass playing around the world. John began teaching at The City College of New York as a professor of Jazz Studies.  He is currently a Visiting Scholar at Berklee College of Music, teaching in both the Global Jazz Institute and the Bass Department.  He has associations with the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead and the The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

Lawrence Dutton, violist for the nine-time Grammy winning Emerson String Quartet, has collaborated with many of the world’s great performing artists, including Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Oscar Shumsky, Leon Fleisher, Sir Paul McCartney, Renee Fleming, Sir James Galway, Andre Previn, Menahem Pressler, Walter Trampler, Rudolf Firkusny, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Joseph Kalichstein, Misha Dichter, Jan DeGaetani, Edgar Meyer, Joshua Bell, and Elmar Oliveira, among others. He has also performed as guest artist with numerous chamber music ensembles such as the Juilliard and Guarneri Quartets, the Beaux Arts Trio and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.

Since 2001, Mr. Dutton has been the Artistic Director of Concordia Conservatory’s Hoch Chamber Music Series, presenting three concerts each year in Bronxville, NY.  He has been featured on three albums with the Grammy winning jazz bassist John Patitucci on the Concord Jazz label and with the Beaux Arts Trio, he recorded the Shostakovich Piano Quintet, Op. 57, and the Fauré G minor Piano Quartet, Op. 45, on the Philips label. His Aspen Music Festival recording with Jan DeGaetani for Bridge records was nominated for a Grammy award.

Mr. Dutton has appeared as soloist with many American and European orchestras including those of Germany, Belgium, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Colorado, and Virginia, among others. He has also appeared as guest artist at the music festivals of Aspen, Santa Fe, Ravinia, La Jolla, the Heifetz Institute, the Great Mountains Festival in Korea, Chamber Music Northwest, the Rome Chamber Music Festival and the Great Lakes Festival. With the late Isaac Stern he had collaborated in the International Chamber Music Encounters both at Carnegie Hall and in Jerusalem.

Currently professor of viola and chamber music at Stony Brook University and at the Robert McDuffie School for Strings at Mercer University in Georgia, Mr. Dutton began his studies of violin with Margaret Pardee and viola with Francis Tursi at the Eastman School. He earned his Bachelors and Master's degrees at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Lillian Fuchs. He has received Honorary Doctorates from Middlebury College, The College of Wooster, Bard College and The Hartt School of Music in Connecticut.

Mr. Dutton together with the Emerson Quartet were presented the 2015 Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award from Chamber Music America and in 2004, received the Avery Fisher Award. They were also inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2010 and were Musical America’s Ensemble of the year for 2000. Mr. Dutton and his wife, violinist Elizabeth Lim-Dutton have three sons. Mr. Dutton performs with his Samuel Zygmuntowicz viola, made in 2003.

Tickets for Bach to Brazil are $44 adult and $22 for senior and children and can be purchased at www.concordiaconservatory.org or by calling 914-395-4507.