Music, acting and theater are coming back to SUNY Old Westbury. The college announced on November 5 that it is starting its largest push into the performing arts in more than 30 years, and it has hired jazz drummer and educator Carl Allen, a former artistic director of jazz studies at the Juilliard School, as a full-time professor to lead it.

Starting with jazz

Allen's first job is jazz. In the near term he will build up the campus's existing Performing Arts minor and create a new minor in jazz. At the same time, he will work with the Visual Arts Department and the college's academic leaders on full undergraduate degree programs in the performing arts for future students.

President Timothy Sams announced the effort in his Fall Address on November 5, describing degrees in music, acting and theater as an investment in the life of the campus. The college says the work will unfold in phases, with students, faculty, alumni and community partners involved, and that it has begun looking at facilities, programming and potential partnerships.

Who Carl Allen is

Allen has more than 240 recordings to his name as a drummer, sideman and bandleader. He comes to Old Westbury from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where for five years he was the William D. and Mary Grant Endowed Professor and director of jazz studies. Before that he led jazz studies at Juilliard.

He has played on Grammy-winning albums and with Ron Carter and Freddie Hubbard. The musicians he has performed with include Michael and Randy Brecker, Benny Golson, J.J. Johnson, Rickie Lee Jones, Sammy Davis Jr., Branford Marsalis, Lena Horne, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Terence Blanchard. In the college's announcement, Allen credits drummer Art Blakey, founder of the Jazz Messengers, with telling him he had an obligation to pass what he learned on to younger players.

A return, not a first

Old Westbury has done this before. The campus once ran an American Music, Dance and Theater program, and the college's announcement includes a photograph of students performing in a class led by Richard Harper during that era. That program has been gone for more than three decades, which is the gap this effort is meant to close.

What it means for Long Island students

For now, the change shows up as coursework: an expanded Performing Arts minor and a jazz minor, open to students in any major. Provost David Lanoue pointed to the skills performing arts courses build, such as communication, critical thinking and working with others, as useful in any field. The degree programs will follow once they are developed, and the college has not yet posted a date for the first enrollment.

Find out more

Students and families interested in the new minors can follow updates on the college's news page, where the full announcement is posted.

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