Professor Dee Spencer is a jazz Wonder

Music Professor Dee Spencer has transformed her Vocal Jazz course this semester into a “Bird of Beauty,” forming an ensemble that performs the music of Stevie Wonder. Spencer was featured on the front page of the Datebook section in the San Francisco Chronicle on Nov. 19.

Wonder’s music draws from jazz and other genres and relates a universal meaning, Spencer said. “His music is incredible — the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms,” she said in the Chronicle story. “The lyrics are great, the messages are there. It's a whole curriculum right there.”

With Spencer on piano, her students will play the Stevie Wonder songs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, in Knuth Hall. The concert is part of the School of Music and Dance’s annual Fall Into Jazz festival.