Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO) hosted its 2024 Gala: Got That Swing! at the Radisson Blu Aqua, 221 N Columbus Drive, on Saturday, March 2. More than $525,000 was raised at the evening of 1930s glamour and music celebrating what would have been the 125th birthday of legendary composer and bandleader Duke Ellington. Proceeds from the event support CYSO’s award-winning music education programming for dedicated young musicians from across the Chicago region. Event chairs were Tyler Forbes & Christopher Taylor and Rachel Lang & Allen Tinkham. WGN anchor and investigative reporter Lourdes Duarte emceed the event.
The evening began at 6:00 pm with cocktails and photo opportunities at the step and repeat and a 360-degree photobooth. Guests mixed and mingled while enjoying music by CYSO’s Preparatory Strings students, led by Director of String Ensembles Daniella Valdez. At 7:00 pm, guests were summoned to the ballroom with a medley of Duke Ellington’s greatest hits performed by CYSO’s flagship Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Allen Tinkham.
The program began with a welcome from gala co-chairs Tyler Forbes and Allen Tinkham, followed by a live auction led by Sayre & Jones Auctioneers’ Chris Liby. Luxury travel packages included trips to the Bahamas, Mexico, and the Florida Keys.
The auction was followed by the presentation of the Note of Excellence Awards. This year's honorees included CYSO Director of Jazz Orchestra Pharez Whitted, a noted trumpet player and educator, who was presented his award by Jazz Orchestra alum, jazz vocalist and pianist Isabella Isherwood. Board chair emeritus Ross Bricker presented the second honoree, Lawyers for the Creative Arts, which was accepted by LCA Executive Director Jan Feldman.
An exciting performance from CYSO’s Jazz Orchestra followed, with a guest appearance from Jahari Stampley, an alum of Jazz Orchestra’s first season in 2017. Stampley was named the Chicago Tribune’s 2023 Chicagoan of the Year for Jazz and recently won the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Competition, as well as the 2023 CYSO Alumni Award. With Stampley on piano and bandleader Pharez Whitted on trumpet, the ensemble performed four well-known Ellington tunes: Boo-Dah, Jeeps Blues, It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing), and Second Line.
CYSO Executive Director Jennie Oh Brown introduced a new short film highlighting CYSO students. Brown connected Duke Ellington’s legacy of pushing boundaries to CYSO’s expansive programming. She highlighted CYSO’s commitment to reaching the Chicago community and supporting students’ quest for personal and artistic excellence. The video featured interviews from current CYSO students, moving the crowd to raise nearly $160,000 in the paddle raise that followed.
Symphony Orchestra and members of Jazz Orchestra then took the stage together for a combined performance of Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown, and Beige Suite and Grand Slam Jam. After a raucous standing ovation, guests were invited to join a dessert reception in the ballroom foyer, where they were treated to music from Kaiso Steel Orchestra, in honor of the 10th anniversary of CYSO’s steelpan program.
Lead sponsors for CYSO’s 2024 Gala: Got That Swing! included Chapman & Cutler LLP, the Bricker/Vinik Family and Jenner & Block LLP, US Bank, Cynthia Van Osdol & John Sandwick, Conagra Brands, Jennifer Myerberg and the Alvin & Louise Myerberg Family Foundation, the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, and Stephen & Terry Schwartz.
ABOUT CHICAGO YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS
Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras’ mission is to inspire and cultivate personal excellence through music. After more than 75 years of music-making, CYSO continues to shape generations of young leaders and musicians. Students collaborate and create in a learning environment like no other, developing fundamental skills including resilience, teamwork, and collaboration. CYSO is committed to educating, encouraging, and empowering each young musician so that they may pursue personal excellence both on and off stage.
CYSO works with more than 800 young musicians ages 6-18 in on-site and school-based ensembles and offers community programming in neighborhoods across Chicago. Programs include symphony and string orchestras, steelpan, jazz, chamber music, and music composition. CYSO invests in our community through CYSO@CPS school-based ensembles and free concerts that reach more than 10,000 young people and families annually.
CYSO champions ensemble-focused programs because of a belief in the power of community. A young musician’s time at CYSO is a pathway of opportunity and growth, but they do not walk it alone. By bringing together young people from across the region, CYSO students build bonds with those who come from different backgrounds and share a passion for music. Musicians develop the skills necessary to thrive as an ensemble—skills that will also serve them as they grow into adults who are engaged and collaborative community members. Whether or not a student continues musical studies after their time in CYSO, young people leave with leadership skills, increased self-confidence, and a deep appreciation for music and the arts. Find out more at cyso.org
ABOUT PHAREZ WHITTED
When Pharez Whitted took on his new role as CYSO Jazz Orchestra Director in 2016, Howard Reich wrote in the Chicago Tribune that “few Chicago musician-educators are more qualified than Whitted to build the new band, for he commands a richly deserved reputation as a trumpet virtuoso, seasoned educator and irrepressible champion of the music.” Whitted has performed throughout the United States and overseas, including performances at presidential inaugurations, The Arsenio Hall Show, The Billboard Music Awards, Carnegie Hall, and major jazz festivals throughout the country.
Whitted is a performer, educator, composer, producer, clinician and was nominated for Independent Jazz Artist of the year in 2011. He studied music at DePauw University and earned his master’s degree from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Whitted has taught at prestigious colleges and universities including Wabash College, The Ohio State University, Chicago State University, and Northern Illinois University. He has performed with such notable musicians as Branford Marsalis, George Duke, Elvin Jones, Kirk Whalum, John Mellencamp, Nancy Wilson, Meshell Ndegeocello, Chaka Khan, and Slide Hampton.
Whitted released his self-titled debut with Motown Records’ jazz label (MoJazz) in 1994 and has continued recording since. His most recent album, Pharaoh Smooth, was released in 2021. Previously serving as Director of Jazz Studies at Chicago State University, Whitted continues to instill his passion for music into students through his positions as Jazz Orchestra Director with Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, as well as Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Ravinia’s Jazz Scholar program. Whitted was named the Chicago Tribune’s Chicagoan of the Year for Jazz for 2016. In 2017, Whitted was inducted into the Shortridge High School (Indianapolis) Hall of Fame 2017 and in 2018, awarded an alumni citation from his alma mater, DePauw University.
ABOUT LAWYERS FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS
Chicago’s arts community has always enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for excellence and diversity across all areas of the arts—music, theater, literature, visual arts, to name a few. But, with that rich creative output comes a huge range of complex legal and business issues. Lawyers for the Creative Arts was created to meet those needs. Fifty-one years into its existence, LCA continues to deliver free services and programs to more than 5,000 artists and arts organizations every year.
LCA is able to call on several thousand volunteer attorneys working at Chicago’s largest law firms to provide pro bono legal representation to the many artists seeking legal help through LCA. But, artists and arts groups need more than occasional legal representation. To run their arts businesses successfully, they need a working understanding of legal and business strategies and best business practices.
LCA fills those needs with an ever-expanding range of educational programs, workshops, and consulting services. During the pandemic, when artists and arts organizations faced unprecedented commercial challenges, LCA created an entirely new set of programs, leading Musical America Worldwide to include LCA in its Top Professionals of 2022 list for its “game changing innovation.” One of LCA’s foundation supporters refers to LCA as “like the Red Cross for the Arts.”
As the pandemic has receded, Chicago’s artists and arts groups face a new set of challenges—unemployment, staff and board burnout, inflation, reduced governmental funding. Issues that have a long history in the arts, such as pay equity, sexual harassment, and disparities in benefits based on racial and ethnic distinctions, are now attracting greater (and well deserved) attention. LCA is working with the legal, arts, and philanthropic communities to develop the next generation of programs and services to help the arts to meet these new challenges.
ABOUT JAHARI STAMPLEY
Jahari Stampley is a Chicago-born pianist who started playing at the age of 14. He began winning competitions within just two years of exploring the instrument, including Best High School Jazz Soloist Award and the National YoungArts Competition. By 18, he was recognized and followed by many world-renowned musicians including Yebba Smith, Jill Scott, Robert Glasper, Cory Henry, Jacob Collier, Stanley Clarke, and Derrick Hodge. Stampley has toured with Stanley Clarke and is featured on Derrick Hodge’s Color of Noise album.
Stampley has performed in venues such as Radio City Music Hall in NYC, The Met Philadelphia, Byline Bank Aragon in Chicago, Carnegie Hall in NY, San Francisco Jazz Center, among others. He also headlined and performed solo piano tours in Berlin, Koethen, and Magdeburg, Germany; Geneva, Switzerland; and Los Angeles, California. In 2023, Stampley won first place in the Herbie Hancock Institute International Competition and was named Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz by the Chicago Tribune. He was the recipient of the 2023 Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras’ Alumni Award—the first non-classical musician to receive the honor, and was awarded the 2023 Luminarts Fellowship for his album Still Listening. Stampley previously won the Bösendorfer prize for the international 2019 American Jazz Pianists Association Competition (for ages 18-25), the 2018 ASCAP Foundation Fran Morganstern Davis Scholarship, and the National Young Arts Foundation 2018 Young Arts Winner.
Stampley released his first debut album Still Listening in 2023, which rose to number one on iTunes in the first weeks of its release. The music on Still Listening has also been set in an orchestral arrangement for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In addition, Stampley designed and composed the score for a music education mobile game, "Piano Chronicles,” available as a mobile app for all devices on Google Play Store and the Apple Store.