We are excited to welcome Evan Palermo to the stage! Tickets for tonight are $15 each in advance, $20 day of show (a $2 per ticket processing fee will be added to your purchase).

Featuring:

Chris Coles - Saxophone
Luca Albano - Piano
Thomas Johnston - Bass
Evan Michael Palermo - Drums

This event will also be livestreamed on BOP STOP's Youtube Channel at showtime. Accessing the stream is free but donations are encouraged and directly support the band.

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Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, saxophonist Christopher J. Coles is based in the Greater Akron area. He serves on the faculty of the University of Akron as Assistant Professor of Practice in Jazz Studies. Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in performance from Youngstown State University, where he studied extensively with James Umble, Kent Englehardt and David Morgan and a master’s degree in performance from the University of Akron. At the 2015 Banff Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music, Chris had the distinct honor of studying with many influential jazz pioneers, including Vijay Iyer, Mark Turner, Imani Izuri, Tia Fuller, Billy Hart, Ingrid Jensen, Zakir Hussain, Somi, Vosany Terry and Miles Okazaki, among others. Chris was a winner of the 2017 Knight Foundation Arts Challenge in Akron, Ohio for his composition “Nine Lives.” “Nine Lives” was written in 2015 in memory of the nine lives lost at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. This work is about 40 minutes and features other art forms such as dance, animation and spoken word.

Chris regularly appears with many local ensembles, including Black Dog Octet, Red Rhinoceros Revival Octet, Bluelight, The Admirables, Sam Blakeslee Large Group and The Stokes Legacy Jazz Orchestra. His own jazz quartet, Gleam, released its debut album in summer 2018. Chris has performed with many notable local and international jazz musicians such as Eddie Baccus Sr., Melvin Burks, Kenny Davis, Glenn Holmes, Bill Ransom, Cecil Rucker, Grammy Award winner Slide Hampton, Ralph Lalama and Allen Vizzutti.

Luca Albano was born in Rome, Italy in 2004, and started his piano studies there in 2008. Since then, he and his family moved to Rochester, NY, where he spent 9 years studying classical piano with Mrs. Harriet Zimmerman in the pre-collegiate program at the Eastman Community Music School. Now a student at BGSU since 2022, he is majoring in classical piano performance and minoring in jazz studies with Dr. Solungga Liu and Professor Ariel Kasler respectively.

Thomas Johnston (b. 2004) is an Australian-born multi-instrumentalist and composer. Thomas composes all kinds of works of varying styles and genres for different chamber ensembles, jazz bands, wind ensembles, and orchestral ensembles. He currently is studying music composition and jazz studies at Bowling Green State University. His teachers include Dr. Christopher Dietz, Ariel Kasler, and Aidan Plank. He can often be seen playing out with the EMP group, as well as a sought out music director and pit musician all across Ohio.

Evan Palermo is a Cleveland native who is currently a 4th year student at Bowling Green State University. Through the music, Evan has been heard in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, and Paris, and more. Evan has also had the opportunity to study, create, and perform with some of the best in the craft such as Marvin ""Smitty"" Smith, John Riley, Ulysses Owens Jr, Stephan Crump, Jacques Lesure, Steve Kortyka, David Bixler, Dan Piccolo, Harrison Roth and many more. Through his 4 years of being a professional musician, Evan has worked freelance for major establishments such as Cedar Point, while continuing to be deeply rooted in the Cleveland and Toledo music scene. Evan can be heard regularly through his projects in the Cleveland theatre scene as a freelance percussionist, the Cleveland rock scene through Rellick, and the Ohio jazz scene through EMP.