MARCH 17, 2026 | 7:30 PM | EASTVOLD AUDITORIUM - KAREN HILLE PHILLIPS CENTER, PLU
Thanks to a generous endowment established by PLU alumnus Dr. Richard Weathermon ’50, the Dick and Helen Weathermon Joyful Noise Endowment forJazz Studies created an annual two-day artist-in-residence program Dr. Weathermon, affectionately known as Dick, worked with David Joyner, former Professor and Director of Jazz Studies, to develop a “guest artist in residence” element—a feature they believed would distinguish PLU for students searching for a college home. With this recruitment component added to the gift, Dick began inviting a local high school jazz ensemble to campus to work with the guest artist and the PLU Jazz Ensemble before performing in the evening concert. Today, the PLU School of Music, Theatre, & Dance has expanded upon this vision with sixteen Washington state high school bands participating in a jazz festival where they: play for their peers; are evaluated by professional musicians; hear from and ask questions of the featured artist-in-residence; and attend the evening concert featuring the PLU Jazz Ensemble and the guest artist. Previous guest artists include Eric Marienthal, Aubrey Logan, Jeff Coffin, Vincent Herring, and Ernie Watts, and Greg Gisbert.
This year we are excited to host a very special guest artist this year: Clarinetist-saxophonist Anat Cohen
Clarinetist-saxophonist Anat Cohen has won hearts and minds around the globe with her expressive virtuosity and magnetic stage presence, earning esteem both as a musician’s musician and as a performer who charms new recruits to the jazz art like few others. With her acclaimed albums, sold-out world tours and Grammy Award nominations adding up over the past two and a half decades — not to mention the glowing profiles by such totemic outlets as NPR’s Fresh Air and The New York Times — it has become apparent that the Brooklyn-based Anat has evolved into one of the music’s great border-bounding leaders, as not only an artist but as an educator, an ambassador. At the core of this, there is always her jubilant, ever-exploratory music-making, as a soloist, bandleader, collaborator and composer. Revered journalist and jazz sage Nat Hentoff encapsulated her artistry this way: “Anat does what all authentic musicians do: She tells stories from her own experiences that are so deeply felt that they are very likely to connect listeners to their own dreams, desires and longings.”
Bloom, Anat’s 21st album as a leader or co-leader and the second with her small group Quartetinho, was issued to rave reviews and a hit trans-Atlantic tour in 2024, with All About Jazz applauding the band’s “daring virtuosity and soulful joie de vivre.” Hot on the heels of that release comes a new live album: Interaction, issued by Anat’s label, Anzic Records, in March 2025. Interaction presents the clarinetist as part of The 3 Cohens, the long-running family band that also stars her brothers, trumpeter Avishai and saxophonist Yuval (both ECM artists). They were recorded in concert with Germany’s WDR Big Band, an ensemble renowned not only for its sound but also its collaborative flair. The arranger-conductor for Interaction is Anat’s Anzic comrade Oded Lev-Ari, who also plays that role with her Tentet, the 10-piece group that she has showcased at such venues as Carnegie Hall and SFJAZZ’s Miner Auditorium. Anat’s multiple Grammy nominations include one for 2019’s Triple Helix, the second album by the Tentet.
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