Jazz star Gary Burton and a Japanese comedy theatre troupe will open the University of Rhode Island Music Department’s fall season with some great performance offerings, along with a memorial concert for the late Rhode Island musician Ron Stabile. All three events will be held in the URI Fine Arts Center Concert Hall at 105 Upper College Road in Kingston, RI.

URI Music presents the Yamato-za Kyogen Theatre Troupe on Sunday September 22 at 3:00pm. Tickets are $12 general admission and $7 for students, available through the Music Department website (new this year) or at the door. The Japanese troupe is in New England this month to present their program “Humor Connecting People Across Cultures,” giving performances and workshops focusing on different aspects of their art at just three locations. The URI event will focus on the elements of music in performance, and will include Fukuro (The Owl), Noh-Style Dance with Classical Piano, assisted by Manabu Takasawa, URI Associate Professor of Music; and the Kyogen play Kaminari (Thunderbolt).

Friends, colleagues, and students of the late Ron Stabile will present an evening of performances with free admission to honor his memory on Saturday, September 28 at 8:00pm. Stabile was a percussionist who performed all over New England and who taught in RI schools including the URI Department of Music.

Multi-Grammy-winning jazz star Gary Burton brings his quartet to URI on September 29 at 3:00pm for a concert to benefit the Ron Stabile Memorial Percussion Scholarship Fund. Tickets for this special event are $45, $35 and $25 with assigned seating and can be purchased in advance by credit card on the URI Music Department website (www.uri.edu/music), or as available by cash or check at the door.

Burton is hailed as a pioneer of jazz fusion along with developing his signature four-mallet percussion technique. Primarily self-taught, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston and quickly launched his career in the early 1960’s. He worked in Nashville, toured with George Shearing, played with the Stan Getz Quartet, formed his own quartet, and was named Down Beat magazine’s ‘Jazzman of the Year’ in 1968 (the youngest ever to receive the title). He won his first Grammy in 1972 and has gone on to a total of 21 Grammy nominations and 7 Grammy wins, many of those with pianist Chick Corea, with whom he has teamed for more than 40 years as a jazz duo. He also joined the staff of Berklee College from 1971–2004, first as Professor, then Dean and finally as Executive Vice President during his last decade. Now semi-retired at age 70, Burton has just released his current quartet’s newest CD, and in August released his memoir, titled Learning to Listen.

The URI Concert Hall is handicap-accessible, and parking is available behind the Fine Arts Center, off Bills Road. Please call 401-874-5955 for more information or visit the URI Music Department website for advance tickets or information, www.uri.edu/music.