Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release
May 9, 2000

Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble Wins Down Beat Magazine's Big Band
Award 


     APPLETON, WIS. -- For the first time in its history, Lawrence
University's Jazz Ensemble has been cited as the best in the country by
Down Beat magazine.  
     Known as LUJE, the 21-member jazz ensemble was named co-winner in
the college division of the Jazz Big Band category in the magazine's
23rd annual student music awards contest.  Winners of the awards --
known as "DBs" -- are considered among the highest honors accorded
college and high school music students.  This year's winners were
announced in the magazine's recently published June edition.  
     The big band DB was Lawrence's ninth award overall and fifth in the
last seven years.  LUJE also was Lawrence's first DB recipient, earning
an "outstanding performance" award in 1985.
     "This has been an exciting year for the band," said Ken Schaphorst,
director of jazz studies at Lawrence, "from our performance with Kevin
Mahogany at Jazz Weekend to our trip to South Bend for the Notre Dame
Jazz Festival.  To finish such a busy and productive year with this kind
of national recognition is extremely gratifying." 
     The 2000 Down Beat awards had a distinct Lawrence "flavor" to them.
LUJE shared the college division jazz big band award with the Eastman
Jazz Ensemble, which is directed by Fred Sturm, a 1973 Lawrence graduate
who founded Lawrence's jazz studies department in 1977 and directed it
for 14 years. 
     Javier Arau, a 1998 graduate and two-time DB winner while a student
at Lawrence, earned two more individual awards in the latest
competition.  Currently a graduate student at the New England
Conservatory, Arau was named the college division winner in both the
jazz arrangement and original composition categories. 
        The Down Beat award comes on the heels of an "outstanding rating"
-- the top available mark -- LUJE earned earlier this spring at the 42nd
annual University of Notre Dame Collegiate Jazz Festival, which
attracted 10 of the best jazz ensembles in the country. 
     The ensemble closes out its 1999-2000 performance schedule with its
final concert Friday, June 2 in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.
     A composer and arranger, Schaphorst has directed Lawrence's jazz
studies department since 1991.  He has released five CDs of jazz and big
band music, including 1999's "Purple," which drew critical acclaim from
reviewers across the country.  The recipient of a 1997 Artist Fellowship
Award by the Wisconsin Arts Board, Schaphorst earned his doctor of
musical arts degree at Boston University.