Jazz at UVA: Visionary Improvisations on Tradition and Innovation (virtual)
Overview
Join Lifetime Learning for an engaging discussion on the impact of jazz both as a musical art form and a cultural force. As a uniquely American genre of music, jazz is rooted in resilience, creativity, and improvisation. It is a musical tradition that honors the past while simultaneously reinventing itself for the future. Our panelists, UVA Music Department faculty, notable performers JoVia Armstrong, Sharel Cassity, and Nicole Mitchell Gantt, will share their artistic connections to Chicago jazz, their experiences as women leaders in the jazz field, and the wide possibilities of deepening UVA’s jazz legacy.
Speaker Biographies
JoVia Armstrong, Assistant Professor of Music, Department of Music, College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
JoVia Armstrong is a percussionist, composer, and educator whose work blends rhythm, technology, and experimental composition. Born in Detroit, Armstrong has performed with artists including El DeBarge, Nicole Mitchell, Isaiah Sharkey, and Malian musicians Ballaké Sissoko and Babani Koné. Her performance style bridges acoustic and electronic percussion, drawing influence from a diverse range of global traditions.
She leads the electroacoustic ensemble Eunoia Society, which explores sound as a healing tool through immersive audio and contemplative composition. Their albums The Antidote Suite (2022) and Inception (2023) received widespread acclaim in The New York Times, DownBeat, JazzTimes, and The Wire. JoVia is also a member of the Detroit-based group Musique Noire and formerly served as percussionist and tour manager for JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound.
An active educator and mentor for over two decades, she taught digital media and audio production and served youth in Chicago through YOUmedia and the Digital Youth Network. Armstrong earned her Ph.D. in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology from UC Irvine. She now serves as Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Virginia, where she teaches composition and electronic music while researching the intersection of Black music, sonic healing, and urban space.
Sharel Cassity, Associate Professor of Music and Director of Jazz Performance, Department of Music, College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Sharel Cassity is a celebrated saxophonist, composer, educator, and recording artist, recognized as the “Rising Star Alto Saxophone” of 2023 by DownBeat Magazine. With nearly two decades of global performance experience, she has made her mark as both a bandleader and sideman, collaborating with renowned artists including Wynton Marsalis, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Roy Hargrove, Herbie Hancock, Nicholas Payton, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Paquito D'Rivera, Jimmy Heath, Michel Camilo, and the Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars, among others.
Steeped in the jazz tradition, Sharel maintains a prominent presence as a jazz artist while also dedicating herself to education as the Director of Jazz at the University of Virginia and through her non-profit program, Jazz Up. She performs at a professional level across both classical and jazz genres on saxophone, flute, and clarinet. Sharel is committed to building upon the legacies of jazz masters while remaining attuned to contemporary and future musical developments.
Nicole Mitchell Gantt, Professor of Music, Department of Music, College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Nicole Mitchell Gantt is an award-winning creative flutist, conceptualist and composer. A former president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), Mitchell’s work is centered in the powerful legacy of contemporary African American culture. She explores creative music as a catalyst for the expansion of human consciousness. Mitchell composes for contemporary ensembles of varied instrumentation and size while incorporating improvisation and a wide aesthetic expression.
As a soloist, bandleader and improviser, she has repeatedly performed throughout Europe, Canada and the U.S. since the early 2000’s and has been awarded Mitchell has been commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture, Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Newport Jazz Festival, the Art Institute of Chicago, the French American Jazz Exchange, Chamber Music America, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. She is a recipient of the Herb Alpert Award (2011), the Chicago 3Arts Award (2011) and the Doris Duke Artist Award (2012). Mitchell is a Professor of Music at the University of Virginia, where she is also affiliate faculty in American Studies and the Carter G. Woodson Institute.