Sherry Alves, instructor of Jazz Voice in the School of Music & Theater, has been selected as the inaugural Zina & Edna Professor in Jazz Voice.
The new professorship has been established through a gift from an anonymous donor with a deep personal interest in the Jazz Voice area of the School of Music & Theater. The professorship is named in honor of the donor’s beloved grandmothers.
The Jazz Voice area, a component of the Jazz Studies major, includes the PSU Vocal Collective, a multi-voiced vocal ensemble and rhythm section that performs many styles of contemporary music. Vocalists pursuing Jazz Voice undertake a practical, comprehensive study of composition, musical analysis, style and inflection, ear training, sight reading, and musical and cultural history.
Sherry Alves is an accomplished jazz vocalist who has performed with and arranged for luminaries including Alan Toussaint, Martha Reeves, Lizz Wright, Kurt Eiling, Dave Frishberg and others as a founding member of the American Metropole Orchestra. She sang backup for Sara Bareilles at the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington D.C. in 2018. In Portland, she has performed with local jazz legend Mel Brown, George Colligan, Dan Balmer and many more. At the University of Northern Colorado, she sang with the New York Voices and Aubrey Logan as a member of the award-winning ensemble Vocal Lab. She has taught jazz voice at Western Oregon University, Metropolitan State University of Denver and Portland Community College.
“I always had a love for singing. In my junior and senior years of high school, I actually thought I might go to Nashville. When I went to college at Western Oregon University, I was exposed to so many different kinds of music, and they allowed me to investigate everything from musical theater to pop songs and then jazz songs.”
Everything changed when she got a call to audition to sing with a jazz band and she performed Louis Jordan’s “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens.”
“It was the first time that I really felt like I was performing something as myself,” she recalls. Since then, she has made a career of exploring jazz in its many forms, from contemporary to traditional.
As instructor of Jazz Voice at PSU, Ms. Alves teaches applied jazz voice, improvisation, jazz pedagogy, jazz vocal ensembles and combos, and special topics in music history.
“Receiving this professorship is such an honor,” says Alves. “Having this support will enable us to create a raft of new professional experiences for students. We plan to bring in great artists to collaborate and make recordings with students, support study abroad experiences when it’s safe to do so, help publicize the work of our students and offer projects that the community can be a part of, and not just through a screen.”
“I want to make it about the student experience,” she says. “I want it to be memorable.”
The funding from the professorship opens up new possibilities for her as an artist and academic as well. “I’d like to make a record, continue my academic research documenting Nancy’s archives, and perhaps even perform” once the pandemic recedes.
A native of southern Oregon, Alves earned a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music from Western Oregon University. In addition to her teaching, she is currently completing a Doctor of Arts in Music with a Jazz Studies emphasis at the University of Northern Colorado, a program that combines aspects of a DMA and Ph.D., with components in performance, research and teaching. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on the life and career of Portland jazz singer Nancy King, chronicling her contributions to the jazz world.
“Nancy is a wonderful storyteller, a great singer and performer,” says Alves. “She puts everything into what she does. This last summer, we’ve been meeting outside, and I’ve been recording her stories, going over her memorabilia and unreleased recordings and photographs, and then doing academic research to piece together the map of her life.”
“Through Sherry Alves’s impressive artistry, leadership and dedication to creating a meaningful, well-rounded experience for her students, she has taken important steps toward growing the Jazz Voice area within the School of Music & Theater,” said Dr. Leroy Bynum, Jr., Dean of the College of the Arts. “The Zina & Edna Professorship in Jazz Voice provides needed support to this important aspect of the Jazz area, and our students will surely reap the benefits.”
To make or discuss an impactful gift supporting PSU art faculty, students or programs, contact:
Jaymee Jacoby, Assistant Vice President for Development
503-890-4962 | jacobyj@psuf.org
Or, make a gift online at giving.psuf.org/cota