Featured Performers
This year’s World Music Festival celebrates the music of America with performances by an all-star lineup of jazz and blues masters.
Corky Siegel
Internationally recognized as one of the world’s great blues harmonica players, Corky Siegel is also a celebrated pianist, singer, songwriter, author and composer. As a founder of the Siegel-Schwall Band in the 1960s, Siegel performed with blues greats Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy and Sam Lay. Since then, Siegel has collaborated with top musicians in many genres, including Seiji Ozawa and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. Among his recent honors are a Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest/Meet the Composer’s national award for chamber music composition, a Chicago Lifetime Achievement Award, and induction into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
Mark Colby
Tenor saxophonist Mark Colby has performed and recorded with such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Jaco Pastorius, Mose Allison, Joe Williams and Charlie Haden. As a featured soloist with Maynard Ferguson’s band, he played jazz festivals and concert halls around the world. An active solo recording artist, he has released eight critically acclaimed albums and made a cameo appearance with Diana Krall in the Johnny Depp movie Public Enemies. Colby is on the faculty at Elmhurst University and DePaul University.
Kalyan Pathak
A composer, percussion player and tabla virtuoso, Kalyan Pathak specializes in a variety of multicultural musical styles. As a teenager in India, he toured with jazz and rock bands and did regular studio session work in Bollywood. Since coming to Chicago in 1991, he has become one of the most sought-after tabla/multi-ethnic percussionists in the country, performing with international artists such as Aretha Franklin, Regis Philbin and Shankar Ehsaan Loy. In addition to his work on the tabla, he composes and performs jazz and other styles.
Joanne May
The former director of the Elmhurst University Philharmonic Orchestra, Joanne May is also assistant professor of music, chair of the string department and music education instructor at Elmhurst. Prior to joining the Elmhurst faculty, May spent 33 years teaching strings, orchestra, band, choir and general music in public schools in Illinois and Missouri. She has received numerous awards for excellence in teaching, including ILMEA’s Mary Hoffman Award for Teaching Excellence and a Teacher Recognition Award from the US Department of Education. May is immediate past national chair of the Orchestra Council for NAfME.