Guest Artist and Clinicians

2025 Jazz Festival Guest Artist: Christopher McBride

We are thrilled to welcome saxophonist Christopher McBride as the guest artist for the 2025 University of Portland Jazz Festival!

Saxophonist Christopher McBride is based in New York City. His work includes education, arranging and composition in addition to performance. He has been slowly but steadily turning heads with his ubiquitous work as an invaluable sideman since the mid-2000’s. Now Christopher is gaining respect amongst fans, critics, and his peers as one of the most versatile saxophonists in the world. His 2012 debut album Quatuor de Force certainly establishes his ability to front a group and write his own soulful, melodically indelible tunes. Applauded for his ability to play in all musical situations, McBride has the ability to unleash a fiery attack and serrated tone, but on his first album he explores a more measured, mellow sound heavily influenced by contemporary R&B—with a strong shot of Cannonball Adderley’s post-bop sensuality—but his improvising is very rigorous and cogent. As a composer, McBride was selected as the 2022 Make Jazz Fellowship artist at The 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, California.

Born in Chicago, and starting his professional career there in 2007, Christopher made the move to NYC in 2013. His group, The Whole Proof, has played venues all over New York. Christopher ran his ‘Singer Meets Saxophonist’ series at the famed Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem from 2017-2019. The musicians he has performed with over the years span many genres, sharing the stage with Billy Preston, Percy Gray, Roy Hargrove, Pete Rock, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, Guy Sebastian, Solange, Ne-Yo, Jennifer Hudson, Alice Smith, Brandon Flowers, Lea DeLaria, 88 Keys, Milton Mustafa, Winard Harper, and Marquis Hill’s Blacktet. 

As a recording artist, McBride’s February 2023 release Ramon made the Top 25 on the JazzWeek Charts and stayed on the charts for 14 weeks as well as making the JazzWeek Top 100 albums for 2023. The sophomore release has received critical acclaim. All About Jazz called the album “a sonic marvel that showcases a robust grasp of bebop and contemporary jazz idioms.” As a performing artist he has received a Grammy certificate for his work as a collaborator/soloist on Steven Feifke and Bijon Watson’s 2022 album Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra.

As an educator, McBride has served as the Director of Education for the Second Line Arts Collective, a non-for-profit organization based out of New Orleans. His primary duties included writing curriculum for the Little Stompers division and teacher development. He also teaches for Jazz at Lincoln Center regularly, as well as touring nationally with various educational programs.

As a journalist and consultant, McBride has worked with Forbes Ignite, the innovation coalition of Forbes. 

Susie Jones

Susie Jones is a jazz educator, retired from Mt. Hood Community College. Under her direction, the MHCC Jazz Band performed at the IAJE convention in New York in 2007, received an IAJE award for "top ten campus CDs", and has toured Taiwan six times on government sponsored tours. Susie served as the Jazz Chair for the Oregon Music Educators Association for 8 years, is past president of the Oregon Unit of International Association for Jazz Education, and is president of the Board of Directors for the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival, producing that festival in 2008, 2009, 2013, and 2014. Susie directed the Community College All-Star Band at the IAJE convention in Toronto in 2008, and contributed a chapter in the book "Teaching Music Through Performance in Jazz", GIA Publications. Prior to her appointment at Mt. Hood
Community College, she taught for 9 years in the North Clackamas School District and 8 years in the David Douglas School District. Susie also served on the Board of Directors at Mt. Hood Community College and Multnomah Education Service District.

Cassio Vianna

Cassio Vianna is a pianist, arranger, producer, music educator, and an award-winning composer whose work reflects a broad range of musical and cultural influences. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Dr. Vianna is currently the Director of Jazz Studies, Associate Professor of Music at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA.

After engaging in many recording and performing projects in the vibrant Rio de Janeiro music scene, Dr. Vianna moved to the U.S. in 2009 to further his music studies and career. Dr. Vianna holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Uni-Rio), a Master of Music degree from Western Oregon University, and a Doctor of Arts degree in Jazz Studies from the University of Northern Colorado, where he studied with David Caffey.

As a very active composer, Dr. Vianna has been commissioned to write pieces in a wide variety of styles, from solo piano to classical chamber pieces, from popular songs to large jazz ensemble charts. His compositions have received awards from the National Band Association, Ithaca College Jazz Composition Competition, Jazz Education Network, and the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC). His jazz big band charts have been performed by artists such as Eric Marienthal, Chris Potter, Ernie Watts, Martha Reeves (Martha & the Vandellas), and the United States Army Field Band (Jazz Ambassadors), among others. His recent albums include Letters to Grace: A Song Cycle (Cassio Vianna, 2011), Infância (Cassio Vianna Jazz Orchestra, 2017), and Vida (Cassio Vianna Jazz Orchestra, 2025). Vida features special guest Eric Marienthal and a stellar group of musicians from the Pacific Northwest.

Over the past 15 years, Dr. Vianna has been featured as an adjudicator, performer, and clinician at jazz festivals and conferences in Latin America and across the U.S. In 2015, he traveled to China to perform and to teach a two-week program at the Guangxi Arts Institute (Nanning Province). He has presented clinics and lectures at several Jazz Education Network Annual Conferences, at the Midwest Clinic, International Composers' Symposium, NAfME Northwest Conference, and at the Washington Music Educators Association Conference.