The Jazz Update’s 2007 CD, Here Today earned considerable praise, rapidly climbing the jazz radio charts in the US and Canada and capturing a No. 2 position for jazz in the vast Music Choice Network. Said Jazz Review: " The fact that Antoniuk and his quartet are an activelygigging, road-tested unit is no small factor in their artistic success."
The group’s second CD, Brotherhood, is a rich offering of progressive straight ahead jazz, released in May 2010 on the Indy label JAJU Records. The five originals contributed by Antoniuk convey a life of rich experience and travel. The album’s global theme is carried over intricate charts and complex arrangements that are playfully executed by peerless performers.
Educator
A dedicated teaching artist, Antoniuk has been featured at the Edmonton
International Jazz Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, the Vic Lewis
International Band Festival and MacEwan Summer Jazz. He is artistic
director and founder of Maryland Summer Jazz, a top rated festival
of workshops, jams and concerts for adults held near the nation's capital.
Antoniuk is a master teaching artist with Washington Performing Arts and the Capitol Jazz Project, in conjunction with Jazz at Lincoln Center and Wynton Marsalis. His programs introduce Monk, Ellington and Coltrane to thousands of Washington, DC area students. He also taught undergraduate and graduate students at Towson University for seven years.
He directs two other prominent educational programs for gifted amateurs and semi-pro jazz musicians and vocalists: Jazz Band Masterclass and InDepth Jazz Clinics & Concerts.
Publications, Articles and Awards
Mr. Antoniuk was invited to the White House in Washington DC in 2015 to
be part of an arts panel for the Youth and Justice Forum. He has also
presented jazz, improvisation and arts based material to DCPS teachers in
many of their yearly professional development sessions.
Mr. Antoniuk was hired to compose jazz solos for “Swingin' Now,” a jazz
play-along book and CD published in 2009 as part of the Alfred Jazz
Play Along Series. A second play-along book with Antoniuk-composed
solos was released in 2010. He wrote a “Guest Clinician” article published
in the June 2007 issue of Jazzed Magazine about the language of jazz. In
1998 his composition “Hypothesis” won the Billboard Songwriting Contest for “Best Performance,” and he was a winner of the 1996 Jazziz Magazine
“Woodwinds on Fire” saxophone talent search.
Mr. Antoniuk lives with his wife and son in Annapolis, Maryland.
