Events

Musician Tuffus Zimbabwe and CofC’s Karen Chandler Talk Jenkins, Jazz

Published

2 years ago

October 3, 2022

By: CofC Media

The College of Charleston Arts Management Program presents the second installment of its speaker series ARTM Exchange, featuring conversations between artists and arts leaders and faculty, staff, students, and the community. The series continues with a discussion on the legacy of Charleston’s Jenkins family as foundational to jazz musicians and music with Tuffus Zimbabwe, pianist, composer, and educator, and Karen Chandler, Associate Professor Emerita, Arts Management.

The event on Monday, October 17 (5:30 p.m. at Harbor Walk West, 360 Concord St., room 213), also includes Zimbabwe’s performance of piano compositions by Edmund Thornton Jenkins. ARTM Exchange events are free and open to students, faculty, staff, and the community. Learn more about the series, including livestream information, here. This event is co-sponsored by the College of Charleston School of the Arts and the College’s Department of Music.

Tuffus Zimbabwe is a pianist, composer, and educator from the Boston area. He studied music at Berklee College of Music and New York University. Zimbabwe is a keyboardist for the Saturday Night Live Band on NBC and a pianist for the Trilogy Opera Company. He has roots in Charleston through his grandmother Mildred Jenkins, a professional operatic and spiritual vocalist who studied at the New England conservatory and the Sorbonne in Paris. Mildred Jenkins and her older brother Edmund Thornton Jenkins were children of Rev. Daniel Joseph Jenkins and Lena James, founders of Charleston’s Jenkins Orphanage and internationally renowned Jenkins Orphanage Band. Edmund Thornton Jenkins got his start taking private lessons at an early age, playing in the Jenkins Orphanage Band and his father’s church.

Karen Chandler, Ph.D., Associate Professor Emerita of Arts Management, retired from the College of Charleston in 2022. From 2014-2019 and 1999-2001, she was the Director of the Arts Management Program and the Graduate Certificate in Arts Management and, over the years, has taught courses in both programs. She served as the Director of the Graduate Certificate in Arts and Cultural Management, a graduate program begun in fall 2019 with degree options in the Master of Public Administration and Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing programs from 2019-2021. Chandler is also Co-Founder/Principal of the Charleston Jazz Initiative (CJI), a jazz history and research project that documents the careers of South Carolina musicians who helped shape jazz history in America and Europe, including members of Charleston’s Jenkins Orphanage Band.

The Arts Management Program prepares students for careers and engagement that advance a resilient creative sector. Through a multidisciplinary curriculum, faculty mentorship, and experiential learning, the program emphasizes strategic thinking, collaboration, and innovation in arts leadership.