Album Notes

At age 30, Sherisse Rogers has already won some of the most prestigious awards in her field. As the 2004 winner of the ASCAP/IAJE Emerging Composer Award in Honor of Count Basie, she has already proven herself to be such. A Philadelphia native, Sherisse played many instruments before deciding to become a composer. In addition to a successful freelance career as a composer/arranger and orchestrator, she also currently maintains a steady freelance career as an electric bassist.
At a relatively young age, she has already become well- recognized in the field of jazz composition. She received the 2001 “Best Arrangement” award from The American Society of Musicians Composers and Arrangers for her orchestral arrangement of “Here’s that Rainy Day”. She was awarded the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award in years 2003, 2005 and 2008. In 2005 she was awarded the BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Award for her piece “A Slippery Slope “and was given the Manny Albam Memorial Commission for the following year where she premiered her large jazz ensemble piece “I stand Corrected”. In 2006 she received the Herb Albert Foundation/IAJE Gil Evans Fellowship whose past recipients include 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship Awardee John Hollenbeck and most notably 2-time Grammy award winner Maria Schneider. Recently she received the 2007 Meet the Composer Van Lier Fellowship, an award granted to recognized composers of African American or Latino heritage less than 32 years of age for artistic creation and general financial support.
A versatile composer, her styles range from jazz and classical to world music and Rhythm & Blues. She is a regular arranger and orchestrator for the world-renowned crossover orchestra “The Metropole Orchestra” based in the Netherlands and was also the featured composer and clinician in Stockholm, Sweden, where she spent a week both rehearsing her music culminating in a concert and giving clinics to the students of the Royal College of Music. In 2007, she was also the featured artists at the Jazz Cologne 07’ jazz festival where her compositions where performed the “Cologne Contemporary Jazz Orchestra”.
In addition to receiving high school and college commissions, she has also written or arranged music for Dave Liebman and Peter Erskine. Her works are published by the recognized jazz music publisher Walrus Music and her music is in the libraries of numerous high schools and universities throughout the United States.
In 2005, her big band “Project Uprising” released their first recording entitled Sleight of Hand which received a rare 4.5 star review (out of 5) in well known jazz publication Downbeat Magazine. The CD features respected jazz saxophonist and composer Dave Liebman, in addition to other special guests. Her big band has appeared numerous times at The Jazz Gallery in New York City since 2004. She most recently has been commission by the latter venue to compose an hour long work for jazz orchestra to be performed in January of 2009. She has also been newly awarded the composition award of the 2008 Thelonious Monks\' annual composition competition award. She holds a Masters of Music in Jazz Composition from the Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Michael Abene . Some of her other teachers have included Jim McNeely, Dave Liebman, and Matt Harris.