Photo: Bill Westmoreland

Dr. Sherrie Maricle, Ph.D.

For musician Sherrie Maricle, her drum set is a real-life metaphor of her career. Just as playing the drums requires coordinating four limbs at the same time, Maricle’s career coordinates successes as a jazz artist, composer, teacher and music director.

From the drum set Maricle leads her big band The DIVA Jazz Orchestra, her quintet FIVE PLAY, and The DIVA Jazz Trio. From Carnegie Hall, she performs with The New York Pops and is also the orchestra's Director of Education. As a music director Sherrie works with acclaimed Broadway star Maurice Hines. As a teacher she runs a private drum set and percussion studio and is also a conductor for The New York Summer Festival. Sherrie is an active clinician for Yamaha Drums, Sabian Cymbals and Vic Firth Drum Sticks and is the creator of The Rhythm, Rhyme and Rap Workshop. She is also a busy freelance performer and a published composer/arranger in both the classical and jazz mediums.

With The DIVA Jazz Orchestra and FIVE PLAY she has performed at many of the world's most acclaimed music venues including:

• Carnegie Hall
• Lincoln Center
• Tanglewood
• the Kennedy Center
• the Hollywood Bowl
• major jazz festivals throughout the United States and abroad

DIVA has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, numerous times on CNN Arts Break and was highlighted on The 25th Anniversary of the Kennedy Center Television Special and the NHK (Japan) Network's New York Jazz. Most recently DIVA is prominently featured in a documentary film entitled The Girls in the Band, scheduled for a 2009 premier.

As a composer, performer and educator, Sherrie has received several honors which include:

• the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival
• ranks for DIVA, FIVE PLAY, and herself in Down Beat Magazine's Annual Reader's Poll
• a feature story in Modern Drummer Magazine, for whom she also authored several articles
• a tour grant from Arts International
• The Kennedy Center Alliance Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Arts
• a grant from Meet the Composer
• a Doctoral Fellowship from New York University
• being voted the New York University Music Teacher of the Year in both 1997 and 2000

Additionally, FIVE PLAY's premier recording On the Brink was voted the #1 CD of 1999 by Nat Hentoff in Jazz Times magazine.

Photo: Nich Anderson

Maricle was born in Buffalo, New York and at age 5 moved to Endicott, New York. In fourth grade she began studying the clarinet and cello but switched to snare drum in sixth grade. When Sherrie was 11 she heard a concert by Buddy Rich and his Killer Force Orchestra that ignited her "percussive" passion and changed her life.

While she was an undergraduate at Binghamton University she began playing professionally in a wide variety of musical situations. After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 she moved to New York City and attended New York University where she completed a Master of Arts in Jazz Performance in 1986 and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Jazz Performance/Composition in 2000.

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra's most recent recording "LIVE" from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola was released in September 2008. Other recordings include: Blues in the Night with vocalist Ann Hampton Callaway (2006, Telarc); T.N.T. - Tommy Newsom Tribute in 2005; Live in Concert, 2003; I Believe in You, 1998; Leave it to DIVA, 1997 and Something's Coming, 1995.

FIVE PLAY's most recent CD, What the World Needs Now, was released by Arbors Records in 2008. Other FIVE PLAY releases on Arbors include: A Jazzy Way with vocalist Maria Anadon, 2006; Plus, 2004 and On the Brink, 1999.

Some of Maricle's additional recording credits include: The Time Being; Cookin' on All Burners; Dedication; Sherrie Maricle and Friends "LIVE"; and numerous compact discs with The New York Pops.

Contact Sherrie

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