Winter solstice concert features Yuletide favorites

For the 10th year, the annual Jazzin’ with the Classics for Christmas will be presented by Trinity Lutheran Church on South Whidbey.

The concert will feature jazz pianist, flutist and clarinetist Martin Lund, classical flutist Jeffrey Cohan and bassist Paul Gabrielson in a unique and joyous celebration of music for the holidays that bridges the jazz/classical divide.

The “jazzin’” begins at 2 p.m., on Saturday, Dec. 21 at Trinity Lutheran Church located at 18341 Highway 525 in Freeland.

Donations — a freewill offering — towards expenses are welcome. Please call the church at 360-331-5191 or visit candlelightnw.org for more information.

In this program, three renowned jazz and classical artists and friends meld their musical perspectives in an unusual collaboration and unique celebration of the Yuletide season that is guaranteed to generate an abundance of Christmas cheer.

Lund, Cohan and Gabrielson team up to bridge contemporary improvisational jazz and the “art music” of baroque and renaissance times. Instrumental musicians have “jazzed up” melodies familiar to them in the style of their day for centuries, and this team’s virtuoso improvisations on Yuletide favorites, and their renditions of classical standards will bring together the best of jazz and classical worlds in a new program for 2024. The festive new program also features special guest baritone Karl Olsen.

Candlelight Concerts, dedicated to George Shangrow and a nonprofit in Washington state since 2011, continues a tradition which Shangrow initiated, featuring chamber music both familiar and unusual performed by some of the Northwest’s finest musicians around Puget Sound.

Lund, an extremely diverse musician, has played with some of the great blues artists of our time and worked in the studios of L.A. as a composer, arranger and musician with artists like Mel Torme to Isaac Hayes. His eclectic background has allowed him to move freely through any style of music from classical to rock and from jazz to Broadway. He is equally adept at clarinet, saxophone, flute and piano. Lund is a well-known performer and teacher who produces one of Orcas Island’s most popular summer music events, the Orcas Island Jazz Festival bringing in top talent from around the northwest and beyond.

Jazz bassist and educator Gabrielson has been playing professionally for over 30 years. Recently relocating back to Seattle from New York City, Gabrielson brings with him a performance roster of some of the finest jazz musicians on the scene today. He has taught at Pacific Lutheran University, Central Washington University and City College of New York and has given numerous clinics and recitals nationwide. He is also the festival founder and director of the annual Pinehurst Jazz Festival in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Flutist Cohan has performed as soloist in 25 countries, both on modern and early transverse flutes from the Renaissance through the present. The winner of many important competitions and awards, he has performed throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States and worldwide for the USIA Arts America Program. Many works have been written for and premiered by him, including five new flute concerti since 2000. He is artistic director of the Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival in Washington, D.C., the Black Hawk Chamber Music Festival in the Midwest and the Salish Sea Early Music Festival in the Pacific Northwest.