STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Jazz saxophonist Doug Stone will be the guest artist and clinician at the 58th annual Tarleton Jazz Festival Friday, April 26 and will join Tarleton State’s Jazz 1 Ensemble in concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 27.

Both will be held at the Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center in Stephenville. 

The Tarleton Jazz Festival, held on campus since 1962, is designed for high school and junior high groups to perform for and work with outstanding jazz educators and guest artists.

Festival adjudicators select winners in each class as well as an overall ensemble winner. Outstanding musicians and soloists are also recognized at the awards ceremony and given $500 scholarships to attend Tarleton State.

Stone will join the Faculty Jazz Combo at the festival awards concert. Additionally, Saturday’s Jazz 1 concert features “The Fatherhood Suite,” composed by Stone.

At Louisiana State University, Stone directs the acclaimed LSU Jazz Ensemble, coaches chamber jazz ensembles, teaches applied lessons in jazz saxophone and improvisation, and teaches courses in jazz pedagogy and career preparedness. He has also served as the president of the Louisiana Association for Jazz Education and jazz division chair of the Louisiana Music Educators Association.

He is a sought-after clinician and presenter at schools and jazz camps for students of all age levels both nationally and internationally. He has presented workshops on jazz, improvisation, and composition in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Medellin and Bogota, Colombia, as well as at jazz festivals in Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Illinois. In the summers, Stone teaches and performs with the Birch Creek Jazz Orchestra at the esteemed Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Egg Harbor, Wisc.

He maintains an active national and international performing and touring schedule, and is a first call musician in New Orleans with groups including the John Mahoney Septet, Reid Poole’s Boppin’ Five, the Victory Swing Orchestra, and in Baton Rouge with the Florida Street Blowhards and others.

A founding member of The Texas A&M System, Tarleton State is breaking records — in enrollment, research, scholarship, athletics, philanthropy and engagement — while transforming the lives of nearly 17,000 students in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Bryan and online. True to Tarleton’s values of excellence, integrity and respect, academic programs emphasize real world learning and address regional, state and national needs.

A founding member of The Texas A&M System, Tarleton State University is breaking records — in enrollment, research, scholarship, athletics, philanthropy and engagement — while transforming the lives of approximately 18,000 students in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Bryan and online. For 125 years, Tarleton State has been committed to accessible higher education opportunities for all while helping students grow academically, socially and professionally through programs that emphasize real world learning and address regional, state and national needs.