Bright Side Festival: Jon McCaslin Quartet featuring Caity Gyorgy

A sizzling night of swing featuring two-time JUNO Award-winning jazz vocalist Caity György and the dynamic Jon McCaslin Quartet with Andre Wickenheiser (trumpet), Aaron Shorr (guitar) and Jeff Gammon (bass). 

Complete festival line-up: https://theatre1308.com/all-events

About the Artists

Caity Gyorgy

Caity Gyorgy (pronounced George) is a 2 time JUNO award winning Canadian vocalist known for singing bebop and swing music. She has performed at jazz clubs and festivals across Canada, Mexico, Japan and the USA and has worked and recorded with incredible musicians including Christine Jensen, Pat LaBarbera, Jocelyn Gould, Ira Coleman, Bryn Roberts and Joe LaBarbera, to name a few. 

In addition to being a performer, Caity is an avid writer and composes songs in the style of the Great American Songbook. Her compositions have been sung by other vocalists around the world, and have won multiple awards including the Grand Prize in the jazz category of the 2021 John Lennon Songwriting Contest. She is also a sought after clinician and is currently on faculty as a vocal jazz instructor at the Yukon Summer Music Camp in Whitehorse, Yukon and the Interprovincial Music Camp in McKellar, Ontario.

She is currently signed to Brooklyn label La Reserve Records and has released several albums of original and standard music with them including her two JUNO award winning albums "Now Pronouncing" and "Featuring". Her most recent album "You’re Alike, You Two”, a collection of Jerome Kern compositions performed with renowned pianist, composer, and arranger Mark Limacher, was released on July 21st, 2023 and has gained international recognition for its unadorned presentation and fresh adaptations of the classic repertoire of Jerome Kern.

Jon McCaslin

Recognized as one of Alberta’s premier jazz drummers and educators, Jon McCaslin brings excitement and his passion for the jazz tradition and its future to the stage and to the classroom.

Raised in Saskatchewan Jon began playing the drums at the age of nine, soon developing a passion for jazz music. His interest in music led him to move to Montreal and enroll in McGill University, graduating with distinction in 1999.

He has attended residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, studied with master jazz drummers in New York City and he has toured around the world with the violin stage show Barrage.

In 2002 McCaslin completed his Master's in Jazz Studies at McGill University and in 2015 Dr. McCaslin completed his Doctorate in Jazz Studies at the University of Toronto, researching the conceptualization of contemporary melodic jazz drumming.

McCaslin has two albums of original music to his credit including McCallum’s Island (2003) and in 2012 he released his album Sunalta. This music was nominated in 2013 by the Western Canadian Music Awards for best jazz recording of the year.

He continues to perform and record with many of Canada and the world’s great jazz artists.

Since 2009 he has authored Four on the Floor  http://jonmccaslinjazzdrummer.blogspot.com/, one of the world’s most recognized on-line jazz drumming blogs.

He is currently based in Calgary where he maintains a busy performing and teaching schedule across Canada.