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July 21, 2010

All things flute

By Carol South Special to the Record-Eagle

TRAVERSE CITY — The Nancy Stagnitta Quartet equals musical magic.

Performing tonight at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, the ensemble will preview a concert next month at the National Flute Convention. Stagnitta is a flute instructor at Interlochen Arts Academy and the principal flutist with the Traverse Symphony Orchestra. She is one of two flutists selected by the National Flute Association to bring her jazz quartet to this prestigious annual professional gathering.

Stagnitta and band members Jack Dryden on bass, Jeff Haas on piano and Randy Marsh on drums will travel to Anaheim to perform on Aug. 14. The conference also features four days of all things flute as students, teachers, performers and international superstars gather.

Playing for an estimated 3,000 fellow flutists next month will be a heady experience.

"It's always an honor to have the opportunity to play for your peers and also to be able to give back," said Stagnitta, a full-time instructor at Interlochen since 2004.

Attending the rest of the conference will be a "shot in the arm" for Stagnitta.

"To watch my colleagues and peers teach and perform, to listen to students — though I'm hearing my students all the time, but to hear a broader sense of what is happening out there — is actually very inspirational," she said.

Stagnitta and the other three musicians are turning to the community with travel expenses. Tonight's fundraising concert will feature everything from Bach to bop to bossa novas as well as some original Haas compositions. The Northwest Michigan Jazz Experience is sponsoring the concert.

Tapping local support will pay many dividends in return said Robert DeGabriele. Stagnitta and her ensemble members will be ambassadors. Their national recognition will spread the word about the region's cultural breadth and depth.

"It's wonderful for them because they've committed to living in this town and forgo living in the metro area making the big bucks," said DeGabriele, a volunteer producer with UpNorth Media. "Secondly, when they give this performance (in California) they shine a light on Traverse City and get this area national and international exposure."

Haas, a composer, bandleader and pianist himself, credits Stagnitta with being both an "outstanding" classical and jazz musician — a rare synergy.

"I have had the good fortune of working with many great classical musicians and many, many great jazz musicians but I have come across very, very few who are truly great at both," Haas said. "Nancy is definitely among that rare group of deeply talented artists who are the real deal in both of these outrageously challenging art forms."

Stagnitta, a classically trained flutist, came to jazz in her 20s. The Hyde Park, N.Y., native did grow up listening to jazz and always loved it.

She followed the classical path, however, earning both bachelor's and master's degrees in music from the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Living in Baltimore, with all the great military band history there and in nearby Washington D.C., sparked her interest in playing jazz as a young adult.

"It was sort of being bitten by the bug and not being able to turn away," she said of her passion for jazz.

She keeps the two genres separate by creating two different flutes in her mind's eye: one for jazz and one for classical.

"It is a different part of the brain, a different approach," Stagnitta said.

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