Seacoast Sessions was created in 2018 by Genevieve Aichele and Kent Allyn to honor seacoast performers who have regional, national and international reputations.  Other than bars and restaurants, there are very few concert venues on the Seacoast that feature local artists. 

Sunday, February 2 @ 2:00PM
RUSS GRAZIER: JAZZ SAXOPHONIST
Accompanied by Jim Dozet on Guitar
PURCHASE TICKETS NOW

Composer and saxophonist Russ Grazier, Jr. is a native of Portsmouth and has taught saxophone, composition, and music theory for over 30 years. In 2002, together with Wendell Purrington and Katie Grazier, he co-founded the Portsmouth Music and Arts Center (PMAC), a nonprofit community music and visual arts school. Mr. Grazier has taught at some of the most prestigious music schools in the country including Boston Conservatory, Roosevelt University (Chicago), the University of Chicago College, the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, and the Merit School of Music (Chicago). Russ has been composer in residence with Chicago’s CUBE Ensemble and his music has been performed by the Contemporary Chamber Players of Chicago, the West End String Quartet, CUBE, Voices from the Heart, and many other ensembles and soloists. In 2011, he won the Duo Fujin one-day composition competition and his winning work, analecta for flute and saxophone was performed by the duo on their tour of the Southeast U.S. in Spring 2012.

Additionally, he has received the Randolph Rothschild Award in Composition and won First Prize in the Virgina Carty DeLillo Composition Competition for his four atmospheres for piano, as solo work premiered by pianist Kathryn Ananda-Owens at Peabody Conservatory. Russ’ primary composition teachers were Larry Thomas Bell, Robert Hall Lewis, Andrew Imbrie, John Eaton, and Pulitzer Prize winner Shulamit Ran.

As a saxophonist, Russ has performed throughout the country as a soloist and with a variety of ensembles and orchestras. Though he trained as a classical saxophonist with Kenneth Radnofsky, he currently performs as a jazz musician throughout the NH Seacoast. He studied saxophone in the chamber music program of Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute in Lenox, MA, as well as at Boston Conservatory, where he performed regularly in the wind ensemble, concert band, jazz big band, and orchestra. In 2018 he gave the world premiere of David Amram’s Greenwich Village Portraits for saxophone and string orchestra as part of the Worldwide Concurrent Premieres commissioning group, which listed Mr. Grazier as one of thirty saxophonists commissioning the work.

NHTP offers audiences a rare opportunity to see and hear master performing artists in an intimate setting, and with the help of a moderator, learn about their professional histories and how they mastered their craft.

Sunday, February 2 @ 2:00PM
RUSS GRAZIER: JAZZ SAXOPHONIST
Accompanied by Jim Dozet on Guitar

PURCHASE TICKETS NOW

To Reserve Industry Tickets
Call (603) 431-6644 or 
Email: gen@nhtheatreproject.org