LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 16, 2015) – Two distinguished guest artists will visit the University of Kentucky School of Music to ring in the new semester. Guitarist Nicholas Goluses and free improvisation artist Ken Vandermark will offer master classes and concerts in the coming week.

As instrument virtuoso Nicholas Goluses concludes his residency at UK School of Music, the guitarist will present a free public concert 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 18, at Singletary Center for the Arts. The program will include works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Mauro Giuliani, Mikis Theodorakis and more.

Called “a true American master” by 20th Century Guitar magazine, Goluses is founder and director of the guitar programs at the Eastman School of Music, where he is the recipient of the Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching. Additionally, he has held the Andrés Segovia Faculty Chair at Manhattan School of Music, where he received his doctoral degree and was the recipient of the Pablo Casals Award and the Faculty Award of Distinguished Merit.

Touring as a soloist, with orchestra, and as a chamber musician has taken Goluses across North America, South America, Europe, Australia and the Far East. He has recorded extensively for NAXOS, Albany and BMG. Committed to performing new music for the guitar, Goluses has given world première performances of more than 100 works.

Ken Vandermark plays a solo baritone improvisation in celebration of Miles Davis. 

Jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist Ken Vandermark will present both a master class and concert during his visit to UK. The artist will present a master class 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 20, in room 22 of the Fine Arts Building. Vandermark's concert will follow later that evening at 7:30 p.m., in the Niles Gallery, located in the Lucile C. Little Fine Arts Library and Learning Center. Both events are free and open to the public.

Vandermark began studying the tenor saxophone at the age of 16. Since graduating with a degree in film and communications from McGill University in 1986, his primary creative emphasis has been the exploration of contemporary music that deals directly with advanced methods of improvisation. In 1989, he moved to Chicago from Boston, and has worked continuously from the early 1990s onward, both as a performer and organizer in North America and Europe, recording in a large array of contexts, with many internationally renowned musicians, such as Fred Anderson, Ab Baars, Peter Brötzmann, Tim Daisy, Hamid Drake, Terrie Ex, Mats Gustafsson, Devin Hoff, Christof Kurzmann, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joe McPhee, Paal Nilssen-Love, Paul Lytton, Andy Moor, Joe Morris and Nate Wooley.

Currently, Vandermark works with Made To Break, The Resonance Ensemble, Side A, Lean Left, Fire Room, the DKV Trio and duos with Paal Nilssen-Love and Tim Daisy. More than half of each year is spent touring in Europe, North America and Japan, and Vandermark's concerts and numerous recordings have been critically acclaimed both at home and abroad. In addition to the tenor sax, he also plays the bass and Bb clarinet, and baritone saxophone.

In 1998, DownBeat Magazine named Vandermark one of the "25 For The Future." In 2004, he was named to the "Musicians Of The Year" by All About Jazz and chosen as one of Chicago's "40 Cultural Heroes" by Time Out in 2008.

The UK School of Music at the UK College of Fine Arts has garnered a national reputation for high-caliber education in opera, choral and instrumental music performance, as well as music education, composition, and theory and music history.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu