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Courtesy photo
Jazz vocal musician and music arranger Kerry Marsh takes a break while on a tour bus. Marsh is working with a rock singer-songwriter while on tour with symphony orchestras.
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Great Bend grad touring with rock star
By DALE HOGG
October 12, 2009 @ 10:28pmEven as Kerry Marsh got off the tour bus in upstate New York, the experience was a little difficult for the Great Bend native to get his mind around.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “It’s a pretty incredible life to hang out with a big rock star.”
Marsh, a classically and jazz-trained vocalist, is touring with the rock singer-songwriter Ben Folds as he performs with some of the nation’s most prestigious symphony orchestras. Marsh’s job is to take Folds’s edgy lyrics and arrange them for choirs.
“This is neat to see,” said Marsh, who teaches jazz voice and arranging at Sacramento State University in California. “ This is really, really cool working with a nationally known rock musician. There are crowds of screaming fans, prestigious halls and famous conductors.”
Folds put together a nine-stop, six-week tour including gigs with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., the Dallas Symphony and the Boston Pops Orchestra. There are stops with some lesser-known ensembles as well.
It’s pretty gruelling. “By the time it’s done, I will have gotten on and off an airplane 25 times,” Marsh said. There are also long hours on a bus. But, “I’m enjoying it as long as it lasts.”
Marsh had worked with Folds in the past, having auditioned via YouTube to record an a cappella CD with him. “After that, we kind of stayed in touch,” Marsh said.
When Folds was hatching his idea of transforming his piano band pieces into symphonic form, he called on Marsh. “He needed an arranger for the background vocals.” The concerts are a cross between rock and classical.
Folds is particularly known on the college circuit with his group the Ben Folds Five. With Marsh’s help, he assembled a choir of college students (also through YouTube auditions).
Besides arranging, Marsh said he’s performed with the choir, including some operatic-style vocals. “That’s kind of strange for me because I’m a jazzer.”
Marsh, the son of Bob and Jo Ann Marsh of Great Bend, graduated from Great Bend High School in 1995 and went on to the University of Kansas and the University of North Texas, earning his master’s in jazz studies in 2003. He has taught at Sacramento for seven years.
He and his wife Julia Dollison, also a jazz vocal instructor, are involved in projects together as well.
