FOUR OF A MIND
Vanessa Sielert | Vern Sielert | Dave Bjur | Dan Bukvich
Vanessa Sielert is director of the Lionel Hampton School of Music and educational advisor for the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. As a professor in the Lionel Hampton School of Music she has taught courses in saxophone and jazz studies. She has also served as professor of saxophone at the Lionel Hampton School of Music and on the faculties of Pacific Lutheran University, Seattle Pacific University and Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Sielert received a Bachelor of Music in music education and saxophone performance from the University of Idaho, a Master of Music in saxophone performance from Baylor University and a Doctor of Musical Arts in saxophone performance and pedagogy from the University of Illinois. She has studied saxophone with Robert Miller, Michael Jacobson and Debra Richtmeyer.
Sielert has performed with a wide range of performing groups including the Palouse Jazz Project, the Bob Curnow Big Band, the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. As a member of the Millennium Saxophone Quartet, she was a medal winner at the prestigious Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. She has been featured on numerous jazz and classical recordings and most recently released a duo album with pianist Catherine Anderson entitled "duality" in November of 2020. She is currently embarking on a video recording project of two recently commissioned works by Dan Cavanagh and David Faleris. Sielert is a Selmer Performing Artist and Clinician.
As a music administrator, Sielert has led the Lionel Hampton School of Music for five years. During this time, she has partnered the school with the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles as a Grammy Museum University Affiliate and has started the Lionel Hampton/Grammy Museum Collective, a university student ensemble comprised of members from university affiliates. She has also guided the department through major building renovations, to be completed in spring of 2023.
Vern Sielert is Professor of Trumpet and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Idaho. He also serves as the artistic advisor for the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. From 2001-2006 he was Director of Jazz Ensembles at the University of Washington, and he has also served on the faculties of Baylor University, Illinois State University and Millikin University. Sielert has also directed jazz ensembles at Normal Community West High School in Normal, Illinois. He holds BM degrees in jazz studies and music education, and a MM degree in jazz studies from the University of North Texas, and a DMA in trumpet performance from the University of Illinois.
Sielert has been a student of Jack Adams, Keith Johnson, Don Jacoby, Michael Ewald, and Ray Sasaki. He has performed with artists such as Natalie Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Freddie Hubbard, Ronnie Milsap, The O’Jays, Bobby Shew, Michael Feinstein, Gerald Wilson, Claudio Roditi and Dee Daniels and in such diverse settings as the Bob Curnow Big Band, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, the Lionel Hampton Big Band, the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Walt Disney World. Vern was also a member of the University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band, which has recorded several of his compositions and arrangements.
Vern maintains an active performing schedule with groups such as the Jim Knapp Orchestra, Emerald City Jazz Orchestra, Palouse Jazz Project, Idaho Brass Quintet, and the Bob Curnow Big Band. His first CD, From There To Here on Pony Boy records was released in 2007. He is a member of the collaborative group the Unhinged Sextet, whose CD Don’t Blink was named one of the best jazz releases of 2017 by critic Mark Sullivan from the website All About Jazz. He can also be heard performing on recent recordings by Greg Yasinitsky’s YAZZ Band, the Jessie Smith Jazz Orchestra, Convergence, the Dan Gailey Jazz Orchestra, Matt Olson, the Bob Curnow Big Band, the Emerald City Jazz Orchestra, Sierra Music Publications and Phil Kelly’s Northwest Prevailing Winds.
His compositions and arrangements have been performed by prestigious ensembles including the Count Basie Orchestra, the U.S. Army Jazz Ambassadors and Otto Sauter’s trumpet ensemble, Ten of the Best. His works are regularly heard in high school and university jazz ensembles across the country and have been recorded by professional groups in the US, Canada and Japan.
Vern is also an active educator, clinician and adjudicator, and has worked at schools and jazz festivals throughout the US and Canada, and at conferences of the Idaho Music Educators, Oregon Music Educators, Washington Music Educators, MENC Northwest Division, WIBC, and the International Association for Jazz Education. He has directed all-state jazz bands in Idaho, Montana, Alaska and New Mexico.
His jazz trumpet solo transcriptions have appeared regularly in the Journal of the International Trumpet Guild since 1998. He currently serves a chair of the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, which he hosted at the University of Washington in 2005, co-hosted in 2017 at the University of Idaho.
Daniel Bukvich was born and raised in Montana, U.S.A., and has taught at the University of Idaho since 1976. He travels (reluctantly) throughout the United States and Canada as a guest composer, conductor and percussionist in concerts with professional, college, high school and grade school bands, orchestras, choirs, honor and all-state groups and has been known to appear (possibly as a result of physical threat to his person or family) at similar events in Europe and East Asia.
His teachers have been among the leading composers, conductors and educators in the Western United States, and Bukvich has absorbed not only their philosophies on music but also their satisfaction with, if not complete desire for, professional and personal obscurity. In fact, he is infamous for being almost impossible to contact due to an extremely busy teaching and composing schedule and his refusal to communicate by any means more modern than face-to-face conversation.
His musical compositions and arrangements are performed by orchestras, choirs, bands, soloists, chamber groups and jazz groups around the world.
Dave Bjur is a professional bassist and teacher. His performing career began in 1977 when he joined the U.S. Air Force Band, playing a variety of styles while performing throughout the Western United States, Hawaii, Guam, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. In 1988 he toured for six months with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and in 1993 & 1994 toured with the Paul Smith Trio in the “Tonight” with Steve Allen stage show. In 1993 he began a four-year role as bassist with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. He recorded with the band on the CD Absolutely! for Lake Street Records and on “White Christmas” from John Pizzarelli’s Let’s Share Christmas RCA recording. With the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra he toured twice to Japan, including performances with Benny Carter and Diana Krall. While in Los Angeles he worked for Ray Brown as associate producer on Ray’s Art of Playing the Bass video series. Studying with John Clayton since 1987, Dave has also taken lessons with Ray Brown, John Heard and Paul Ellison.
Dave has been teaching jazz bass at WSU since 2020. He previously taught jazz bass at the University of Idaho from 2006–2020, performing and recording with the Palouse Jazz Project, the Lionel Hampton School of Music faculty jazz ensemble. He has additionally taught double bass at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, and Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Washington.
