Chicago Tribune Spotlights "Exceptional Trumpeter" and Music Educator Pharez Whitted '82

July 17, 2018

"Brilliant jazz soloists always have been abundant in Chicago, but some of them extend their reach far beyond the bandstand," begins a Chicago Tribune article. "Consider Pharez Whitted, an exceptional trumpeter who plays Saturday night at Winter’s Jazz Club. In addition to his ubiquity in Chicago’s clubs and concert halls, Whitted continues to try to uplift young people through music."

The story by Howard Reich notes how Whitted, a 1982 graduate of DePauw University, serves as jazz director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and tours the Chicago Public Schools as part of an outreach program created by Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. "So if you’re an aspiring young musician in Chicago, chances are you’ve encountered Whitted, or will soon," Reich writes.

"The goal is to reach as many young people as possible," Whitted tells the newspaper. "It’s just getting kids to feel more comfortable expressing themselves: singing in public, dancing, playing rhythms. Things that will help kids develop more of an outgoing, extroverted personality, so they’re not so reserved to the point where they feel threatened, scared, uncomfortable around people."

The graduate of the DePauw University School of Music, who played football as an undergraduate, adds, "If you help kids to understand how to be more expressive, how to be more creative-minded, how to be more open and welcoming, to get past all these issues of discrimination, racism, bullying. Every negative out there is due to that fact that kids are scared of being uncomfortable. Or they’ll be led by a group of people or a system that is encouraging them to be bullies or negative or scared and frustrated."

The piece notes that Whitted is working on a new album. Access it here.

Source: Chicago Tribune

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