Formed in 2003, the Pittsburgh Collective is a twenty-piece big band comprised of top-level jazz, classical and new music virtuosi.  Described with such praise as “a very original, innovative jazz orchestra”, “death star magnitude”, “full-throttle wailing from all sections”, “reaches out of the speakers and grabs you by the scruff of your neck”, and “a powerhouse of some of the most incredible musicians and jazz aficionados you have ever or never heard”, the band extends the Third Stream tradition of Ellington, Kenton, Gunther Schuller, George Russell and Charles Mingus, straddling jazz and classical idioms with a plurality and intensity reflective of the 21^st century.  Members of the band come from the Meridian Arts Ensemble, the Atlantic Brass Quintet, Brass Roots, the Manhattan Brass, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, the New Millennium Ensemble, Urban Sun, and the bands of Ran Blake, Hugh Ragin, Gunther Schuller, Fred Hersch, and ICE, as well as leading their own groups for which they compose and arrange.

Past performances include concerts at Skidmore College, the Festival of New Trumpet Music, the International Association for Jazz Education Conference in New York City, and Miller Theatre at Columbia University for a Composer Portrait concert.  In 2004 they were awarded a Koussevitzky Commission for a concerto with cellist Matt Haimovitz. The resulting work, Scherzo Grosso, was recorded on the group’s first CD, Live at the Knitting Factory (Oxingale) released in January of 2007 and featured among Jazziz magazine's top discs of the year in their Critics' Choice issue. 

Videos: Scherzo Grosso featuring Matt Haimovitz, cello: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czTXfsvVpoo

“Fenwick” feat. Jon Irabagon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUc_NtF_Yus