The road to the replacement of the last NU jazz studies director, Don Owens, has been a bumpy one, but it led to renowned jazz artist and educator, Victor Goines, who’s set to start in Spring Quarter.

Goines’ appointment was announced in November, ending a nearly two-year search for a jazz director for the School of Music.

“I think this is a great opportunity, for all of us who are joining the music school’s efforts, to promote jazz studies on Northwestern’s campus,” Goines said Wednesday in a phone interview. “I look forward to the opportunity of coming to Evanston and becoming part of the Chicago jazz scene.”

The jazz studies major had been suspended last spring because a director couldn’t be found, though current majors were allowed to continue their degree program.

“I think the fact that they found anyone [to direct the jazz program] was almost a miracle,” said Michael Lebrun, a Northwestern alumnus.

When he was a senior, Lebrun helped promote the cause of saving the NU jazz program by starting the Friends of NU Jazz Facebook group, and creating a Web site of the same name.

“Initially, we just wanted to make everyone aware,” Lebrun said. He didn’t think the program would be revived.

Music senior Joshua Moshier said in an e-mail that he is “convinced that [the] public outcry of support was the motivating factor that led … administrators to action.”

The school will continue to undergo change, though. While the major and program have been saved, current jazz faculty will be dismissed at the end of the academic year, said Ellen Schantz, director of communications and marketing at the School of Music.

For that reason, Moshier finds the appointment to be a “bittersweet victory.”

Looking ahead

There has been positive buzz about Goines’ appointment.

In a November press release, Dean Toni-Marie Montgomery said that she is “confident that Victor Goines will transform the Northwestern jazz program, making it a center for the performance and study of jazz, and a source of pride for the School of Music, the University, and the Evanston and Chicago area communities.”

Music senior Adam Gross agrees.

“I think [Goines’s appointment] is exactly what Northwestern needs,” he said. “I’m really excited that he’s coming in.”

Goines expressed just as much enthusiasm. Among his reasons for his accepting the school’s offer, Goines included the character of Northwestern and its music department, as well as the presence of Chicago.

“[The university] is located in the city which is one of the meccas of jazz,” Goines said. “Like New York, Chicago has a history of producing great musicians that actually go into the city to practice their craft.”

Goines is currently on tour with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. He has toured worldwide with the orchestra and made seven recordings with his own quartet and quintet. He had an eight-year run as artistic director of the jazz studies program at The Juilliard School in New York.

He said he’s excited about bringing his experience to Northwestern.

“I look forward to assembling a group of jazz educators who can assist our students in the study of this great American art form called jazz,” Goines said.