The duo of Willis Deloney and Adam Unsworth will perform at Northwestern State University Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.
Widely versed in both the classical and jazz idioms, Deloney and Unsworth bring a unique musical sensibility and breadth of experience to the horn/piano duo setting.
In a career spanning over three decades, Delony has won acclaim as a leading classical/jazz crossover artist. His concert explorations of the two musical worlds are showcased in a series of solo piano recordings on the Centaur label. “A New World A’ Comin’ – Classical and Jazz Connections” was released in 2001. “Double Dance – Classical and Jazz Connections II” was released in 2008, while the final installment of the series, “Out of Character – Classical and Jazz Connections III,” was released in October 2014. Previous album credits include a recording of sonatas by Samuel Barber and Sergei Prokofiev, also on the Centaur label, and a jazz album entitled “Civilized Conversations,” featuring Delony and bassist Bill Grimes.
Delony has appeared as piano soloist, guest pianist/arranger or conductor with orchestras throughout the United States as well as orchestras in Canada, the former Soviet Union and China. As a solo and collaborative recitalist, he has performed classical and jazz concerts throughout the U.S. – including a solo recital at Carnegie Hall (October, 2014) – as well as in France, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Mexico and Brazil.
A professor of horn at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Unsworth is dedicated to commissioning and performing works of living composers, expanding the modern repertoire to extended the boundaries of the horn.
He has five recordings as a leader to his credit that encompass a wide variety of music: “Balance” (2014), a jazz recording for horn, jazz sextet and chamber orchestra, “Snapshots” (2013), a recording or contemporary classical music in collaboration with composer/pianist Catherine Likhuta, “Just Follow Instructions” (2009), featuring the chamber music of saxophonist/composer Daniel Schnyder, “Next Step” (2008) and “Excerpt This!,” jazz recordings which received critical acclaim in both jazz and classical reviews.
Unsworth is a member of the Gil Evans Centennial Project big band, which has received two Grammy nominations for its’ recordings “Centennial and Lines of Color,” and won the 2013 Jazz Journalist Association Award for Large Jazz Ensemble of the Year. Prior to his appointment at the University of Michigan, he was Fourth Horn of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Second Horn of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
