ERIK APPLEGATE SERIES
Bassist, composer, bandleader, and songwriter Erik Applegate has been called “a top-notch acoustic bass performer” by Jazz Review.com, and his music has been performed live and heard on radio stations around the world.
Erik has appeared with jazz artists including the Bob Mintzer Big Band, Nnenna Freelon, Milt Jackson, Jeff Coffin, Mulgrew Miller, Greg Gisbert, Eddie Daniels, Ingrid Jensen, Dick Oatts, George Garzone, Tom Harrell, Don Aliquo, Clay Jenkins, Ron Miles, Scott Wendholdt, Jack Walrath, Kirk Whalum, Dave Pietro, Deborah Brown, Marlena Shaw, Peter Eldridge, Bob Dorough, Billy Pierce, Alan Dawson, and others. He toured with renowned pianist James Williams and in a trio with Harold Mabern and Ed Thigpen, and has appeared at jazz festivals, clubs, and concert series throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Australia.
His first CD as a leader, Red Skies, showcases Applegate’s playing and songwriting in a quartet setting.
A versatile composer and arranger, Applegate has written commissions for jazz artists, university jazz and classical ensembles, and professional chamber groups. He was awarded an Individual Artist Grant from the Colorado Council on the Arts for his “Walt Whitman Jazz Suite” and won a Down Beat Student Music Award for “Best Original Composition.” Recent premieres include a big band setting of ee cummings’ poem, In Just- Spring, Avatar (an electronic loop and samples piece written to choreography), and orchestral arrangements for Cajun-pop star Doug Kershaw’s live concert DVD, Classical Cajun Gumbo.
Applegate is Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Northern Colorado, where he was named the College of Performing and Visual Arts Scholar of the Year for 2009-10. He is active nationally as a clinician for high school and college jazz ensembles and serves on the faculties of jazz camps in Oregon, Wyoming, and Colorado.
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