Algoma Conservatory presents a night of jazz at The Loft

On Saturday, March 4, the Algoma Conservatory of Music presents a night of jazz at The Loft with Matt Warnock and Roddy Ellias. Show time is 7:30 p.m.

The evening will be a celebration of the music of Wes Montgomery to commemorate his 100th birthday.

Tickets are $25 (including fees) and may be purchased online or by phone at 705-971-4197. If you wish to reserve seats and pay at the door, please email [email protected] or call 705-971-4197.

To learn more about this and all other upcoming Algoma Conservatory of Music events, please visit the website.

About Matt Warnock

Matt Warnock is an internationally recognized performance and guitar educator. Matt has performed in concert halls and at jazz festivals in the US, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, U.K., France, Belgium, Estonia, and Latvia. He's shared the stage with Randy Brecker, Slide Hampton, Stefon Harris, and other legendary jazz musicians.

As well as being an in-demand performer, Matt has been a professor of guitar at Western Illinois University, Leeds Conservatoire, and the University of Chester. He has also held the position of Senior Examiner at the London College of Music (RCM Division).

Currently, Matt lives in Sault Ste. Marie where he runs the No. 1 jazz guitar site online and spends his time writing and recording original music when he's not hiking with his wife and two pointers.

Guitar studies have included certificates and diplomas from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Vanier College, McGill University – BMUS Jazz Guitar Performance, Western Michigan University – MMUS Jazz Performance, and University of Illinois – DMA Jazz Performance.

About Roddy Ellias

His music has been described as “unapologetically beautiful” (All About Jazz) and his creativity “both startling and inspiring” (Just Jazz Guitar). A passionate improviser and prolific composer, Canadian guitarist Roddy Ellias is an artist whose work defies simple definition. His musical journey has taken him from his early roots in pop and R&B bands and classical music, to the improvised world of jazz, through African and other world beats all the way to writing an opera, and everything in between. Along the way he’s performed with some of the great names in music, from Cleo Laine, Michel Legrand, the Montreal Symphony, the NAC Orchestra to Lee Konitz, Nat Adderley, Kenny Wheeler, Mark Murphy, Tom Harrel, David Liebman, Joel Frahm, Dr. Lonnie Johnston and many more.

From his early days of improvising at his grandmother’s piano at the age of five, to the present day, Ellias has sought to express things in music that could not be expressed any other way, and music continues to be a vital channel for his restless creativity. The only Canadian to win the prestigious Jazz Hero Award from the Jazz Journalists of America in 2013, as well as the Ottawa International Jazz Festival Award in 2009, he has consistently created recordings of such quality they continue to be played long after their release.

From the haunting Whale Spirit Rising, recorded on the Chandos label along with works by Keith Jarrett, to Monday’s Dream, which garnered a four-star review in Downbeat, to Sticks and Stones, with legendary New York pianist Marc Copland, Ellias has demonstrated again and again his willingness to stand apart. He further surprised and delighted his fans by writing Sleeping Rough, a full-length puppet opera about a homeless man, which was performed to sold-out crowds at the Music and Beyond Festival in Ottawa in the summer of 2018. There was such a demand for those who couldn’t get tickets it was performed again in 2019. Festival director Julian Armour noted that “Ellias writes and plays from the heart and soul, and from the great mosaic of music he’s been involved with.”