Gordon Vernick
Professor Director of Jazz Studies School of Music- Specializations
Ensembles and Conducting: Jazz Band
- Biography
Coordinator of Jazz Studies
Dr. Gordon Vernick is a Professor of Music and Coordinator of Jazz Studies at Georgia State University. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY; a Master of Music from the University of Miami, and a Doctor of Arts from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley.
As a professional trumpet player, he has performed in all musical mediums from symphony orchestra to jazz quartet and has free-lanced all over the world. He is currently active as a clinician, an adjudicator, and as a freelance trumpet player.
As a jazz educator he is the past president of the Georgia Association of Jazz Educators and past chair of the International Association of Jazz Educators Curriculum Committee. He is currently the Director of the Rialto Youth Jazz Orchestra and the musical director of the Rialto Jazz for Kids middle school jazz outreach program.
He is director of the GSU Faculty Jazztet which performs regularly in Atlanta and has appeared at the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the High Museum Jazz Series, the International Association for Jazz Education Conference and many other venues. He has performed with such world-renown jazz artists as Kenny Werner, Clare Fischer, John Hart, Kevin Hays, Conrad Herwig, Marc Copland, Randy Brecker, Paul McCandless, and others. As a clinician/teacher he has served residencies and performed at the Conservatory of San Juan, P.R., the Taipei American School in Taiwan, the Singapore American School, the Bangkok International School, Columbia College Chicago, The Conservatory of Bordeaux, the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and the Royal Northern Conservatory of Manchester, U.K.
His podcasts, Jazz Insights, have been featured on a number of websites including the New York Times and have been downloaded over 12 million times since May 2009 His CD, The Strangest Thing, was released on Jbird Records in May 2008 and his latest CD, Destination, was released in May 2012. He is a Van Laar trumpet clinician.