Hendrik Meurkens, harmonica, & Bill Cunliffe, piano

Hendrik Meurkens, a virtuoso on both the chromatic harmonica and the vibraphone, is the most important jazz harmonica player since Toots Thielemans. German-born but now based in New York, Meurkens’ recordings and performances garner worldwide acclaim because the transcendent beauty of his music has universal appeal.

Cal State Fullerton Professor of Music Bill Cunliffe is a jazz pianist, composer, Grammy Award-winning arranger and record producer. He is known for his work in blending jazz with the classical and pop genres based on a deep knowledge of and a lively curiosity about musical styles. As a solo artist and bandleader, he has more than a dozen albums to his name, and wearing other hats, including as a sideman, he appears on numerous other recordings.

Recent performances in addition to his solo and group jazz gigs hint at Cunliffe’s expansive musical playground: Before an audience of nearly 4,500, he led Cal State Fullerton’s fundraising “Concert Under the Stars.” He played piano-four-hands in a concert at Boston Court in Pasadena, Calif., with classical pianist and fellow CSUF faculty member Alison Edwards. He was guest artist with orchestras performing his arrangements of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and Concerto in F, third movement, and his own trumpet concerto. He toured New Zealand in solo concerts and as a guest artist with the Rodger Fox Wellington Jazz Orchestra. He led CSUF’s Fullerton Jazz Orchestra in his arrangements of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Mason Williams’ “Classical Gas” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.”