Young jazz talent from across Nashville will unite on one stage for the inaugural concert of the Nashville Intercollegiate All-Stars on December 6, 2026, at 7:30 PM.
The newly formed large ensemble brings together top students from colleges and universities across the city to play as one band, with coaching provided by a rotating cast of jazz faculty from their respective schools.
Marc Widenhofer, a faculty member in the Blair School of Music Jazz Studies Department at Vanderbilt University, will lead the band for its debut performance at the Nashville Jazz Workshop in the Jazz Cave.
Known for his adaptability as a jazz percussionist, Widenhofer has shared the stage with musicians including John Clayton, Houston Person, Joel Frahm, Pat Coil, Bruce Dudley, Don Aliquo, Ron Bridgewater, Janguen Bae, Bert Ligon, Chip Stephens, Larry Gray, Chip McNeil, and The Ryan Middagh Jazz Orchestra.
He was also a featured artist headlining the 2012 Taichung International Jazz Festival alongside the JB Trio and Greg Osby, and he toured internationally throughout China with the Nashville-based band Denver and the Mile High Orchestra, appearing on their 2017 release “Live from China!”
Throughout his professional journey, Widenhofer has held faculty roles at Greenville College, Lander University, USC-Aiken, and the University of South Carolina-Columbia, besides directing masterclasses centered on jazz drumming and ensemble performance at Millikin University, Anderson University, and the University of Minnesota, Morris. Under his direction at Vanderbilt, the Vanderbilt Latin Jazz ensemble performed at the 2023 Jazz Education Network Conference and earned DownBeat Student Music Awards in 2025 and 2026.
The upcoming project is funded in part by Metro Arts.
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