Jazz trumpeter Randy Brecker here for series of performances

Seasoned jazz veteran, virtuoso trumpeter and prolific composer Randy Brecker will offer a series of free clinics and open rehearsals as artist in-residence April 25-29. The residency will culminate in two performances.

The first, with Old Dominion's Big Band, will be at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 28, in Chandler Recital Hall of the Diehn Fine and Performing Arts Center.

On Monday, April 29, Brecker will perform with the John Toomey Quartet at 8 p.m. in Chandler Recital Hall as part of the F. Ludwig Diehn Concert Series. Both concerts as well as the clinics and rehearsals are free and open to the public. For a schedule call the music department at 683-4061.

Brecker and his horn have graced the bandstands and recordings of Horace Silver, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Charles Mingus, Clark Terry, Joe Henderson, Duke Pearson, Frank Foster and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. As a first-call studio player, Brecker has also energized innumerable studio sessions by artists ranging from James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Parliament-Funkadelic to David Sanborn, Jaco Pastorius and Frank Zappa.

He is a true musical pioneer who continues to perform extensively around the world in his quest for musical excellence while constantly expanding his trumpet style and encyclopedic catalogue of compositions. As with all great artists, his technique and knowledge are a means to a larger vision rather than an end in themselves.

Brecker's performances are part of the F. Ludwig Diehn Concert and Residency Series, which is funded by a grant from the F. Ludwig Diehn Music Fund of The Norfolk Foundation.

For more information call 683-3020.