About IOJC
The Dillard University Institute of Jazz Culture (IOJC) was founded in 2002 to provide an innovative vehicle for holistic education through the prism of Jazz. Under the present direction of Edward Anderson, the mission of the IOJC is to preserve through documentation, promote through education and celebrate through performance the jazz culture of New Orleans.
“We are in the midst of an unprecedented window of opportunity for New Orleans’s jazz culture,” Edward Anderson declares. “As a pillar of higher learning in the Greater New Orleans community, Dillard and the IOJC can become that needed institutional beacon to help galvanize our jazz community and promote the retention of our best and brightest talents for a more artistic and economically prosperous future.”
Professional opportunities for musicians in New Orleans have never been more promising. The State of Louisiana has created significant economic incentives to record music in Louisiana, to incorporate it into films and computer games, and to develop new works for the theater that employ musicians. These are areas of the music industry in which African Americans have been historically underrepresented. Dillard University and the IOJC expect to help reverse this pattern.
Director: Edward Anderson
In 2004, Edward Anderson was selected to be the new director of the IOJC. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and one of the leading musicians in New Orleans, Anderson was hired to strengthen the academic and community efforts of the IOJC and Dillard University as a whole. The need for a program like the IOJC had been obvious for much too long. “We are all aware,” says Anderson, “of the long-standing divide between our wealth of musical talent, on the one hand, and our lack of focus on education and sustained economic opportunity for our musicians and music culture, on the other.”
Executive Board
The IOJC Executive Board is a group of experienced professionals from jazz and cultural communities that consults on the programs and projects of the IOJC.
Members:
Andrea Duplessis is the producer of Nickel-A-Dance jazz series held weekly during the months of October and March in New Orleans for the last 15 years. She produced the grammy-award winning Doc Cheatham & Nicolas Payton, and manages educational outreach projects of the Brooklyn Repertory Ensemble, and Henry Butler's Creative Music and Jazz Camp fo Blind and Visually Impaired Teens.
Jacqueline “Jackie” M. Harris has spent the past 25 years providing convention planning, festival/music production, program administration/coordination, and event management services to a variety of clients in Haiti, Aruba, Germany, France, Jamaica, and many cities throughout the United States. Among her clients are Jazz @ Lincoln Center and Jazz Mobile.
Willard Jenkins As an arts administrator, producer, presenter, journalist, broadcaster, educator, and consultant, Willard Jenkins has devoted much of his life’s work to nurturing the growth and enhancement of jazz music as a fine art form. Jenkins is an independent arts consultant & producer, and writer under the Open Sky banner. Much of Jenkins’ current activity includes concert, festival, and concert series planning, artistic direction, consulting, music journalism, and broadcast production work.
William J. Morris is a double bass player with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and teaches music at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) in the areas of Music Theory, Chamber Music, Double Bass Instructor
Shanna Hudson-Stowe is the Executive Assistant with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation. She coordinates the Don Jamison Heritage School of Music, and Educational Outreach for the Foundation.
Danille Taylor PhD is the Dean of Humanities at Dillard University.
