i3º (pronounced “thirteen degrees“) is a jazz trio of music professors from Ithaca College, in central NY. Nicholas Walker plays the double bass, Greg Evans plays the drums, and Nick Weiser plays the piano. i3º plays music in schools, retirement communities, concert halls, outdoor festivals, prisons, hospitals, parks, homes, bars, and community centers. The members of the trio believe that music elevates the human condition, that access to music is a basic human need (like clear water and shelter), that the act of attending to music ignites the empathy sectors in the brain, which in turn releases oxytocin, building intimacy, and leading us all to compassion, morality, and love.
Greg Evans
Greg Evans is a passionate and captivating performer, pedagogue and composer. His drive, energy and facility on the drum set has given him experience across the spectrum of the music industry. Greg’s influence spans multiple milieus including live and studio recordings, clubs and music venues, festivals, and the classroom.
A native of Liverpool, New York, Evans earned his Masters of Music at Ithaca College in 2011 with a focus in percussion studies. While at Ithaca College, he studied with the incomparable marimbist, educator and Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame inductee, Gordon Stout. It was while completing this degree that Evans also served as the Jazz department’s teaching assistant, a position that required various teaching and administrative duties. Evans holds a Bachelors of Music in jazz studies from the Manhattan School of Music (2009) where he studied with the Assistant Dean and Chair of the Jazz Arts Program, Justin DiCioccio, and John Riley. Evans has also spent many years as a student of Herbert Flower, principal percussionist of the Syracuse Symphony.
Evans’ incessant, buoyant, and joyous groove has facilitated a consistent and ever growing performing life. He has performed in multiple national tours, including those of the bands ISM, Remington, and Turkuaz . He has also recorded with these bands as well as the Danny Rivera Orchestra, The Mike Titlebaum Jazz Band, Hank Roberts’ Phonetix, Aaron Tindall’s award winning album This is My House…, and The Ithaca College Jazz Ensemble. Evans also maintains an active freelance schedule playing various album release events, one-off gigs, theatre contracts, and private functions and live performances. Evans has appeared with many artists including: The Count Basie Orchestra, Jonathan Batiste, Terence Blanchard, Chick Corea, Joey DeFrancesco, Melinda Doolittle, Kurt Elling, Robin Eubanks, Jimmy Heath, Joe Magnarelli, Eric Marienthal, Branford Marsalis, John Pizzarelli, Hank Roberts, Dave Samules, John Stetch, and Allen Vizzutti.
Evans also keeps a fulfilling teaching schedule. Evans teaches at Ithaca College and at Cornell University. At Cornell, Evans has successfully developed a growing drum set studio. At Ithaca College, Evans plays in the IC Jazz Quartet, conducts the Ithaca College Jazz Repertory Ensemble, coaches various combos, teaches Survey of Jazz History and maintains an active private studio. He also teaches an Honors Course, Cultural Encounters, and has also taught a freshman seminar as part of the Integrative Core Curriculum. Evans strives in his teachings to help guide students to realize their potential as improvisers, ensemble players, and consumers of music. By referencing jazz tradition, Evans helps students assimilate sounds of the past to create the new sounds of the future.
Nicholas Walker
Nicholas Walker is a musical omnivore, a musician who brings a broad range of training and experience to the double bass - classical and jazz, modern and baroque, concertos, solo recitals, chamber ensembles, and orchestral work. His enthusiasm and aptitude transcend arbitrary musical boundaries.
Walker is an Associate Professor of Music at Ithaca College, and is President-Elect of the International Society of Bassists, and Artistic Director/Convention Chair for the 50th Anniversary ISB convention in Ithaca in 2017. Walker leads a rewarding career as a freelance musician, composer, and educator. Walker has given masterclasses and performances in over a dozen countries, including guest residencies at leading conservatories in the U.S.A., Seoul, Amsterdam, the Hague, Oslo, Hanover, Leipzig, Rostock, Adelaide, St. Petersburg, and Beijing. As an orchestral musician, Walker has freelanced with the Oslo Philharmonic, the National Arts Center Orchestra of Canada, the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra, and the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic.
As a soloist he has premiered a concerto by Dana Wilson, and was featured at Berlin Bass 2010, several International Society of Bassist Conventions, Michaelstein Kaleidoskop, and the Beijing International Double Bass Festival. A Fulbright Scholar, Walker has diplomas from Rice University, the Nadia Boulanger Conservatoire de Paris, and Stony Brook University; earning his Doctorate in early music at Stony Brook University in 2004.
Walker has been featured on a dozen CDs, three as a leader, and has frequently been heard on NPR's Performance Today. As a composer Walker has written two double-bass concertos, several chamber works, as well as solo bass pieces, one of which won first prize winner in the ISB Composition Competition.
Nick Weiser
Pianist Nick Weiser is steeped in both the jazz and classical idioms and has performed at events as far reaching as the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, and Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival.
During his formative years in western Kansas, Weiser studied piano with the late jazz pianist, composer, and arranger Frank Mantooth before matriculating to the University of Kansas. There, he developed his classical background while maintaining an active involvement in the jazz and musical theater programs, winning the prestigious Dick Wright Jazz Award in 2006 and performing with such greats as Peter Erskine, Ingrid Jensen, Rich Perry, John Abercrombie, and Gary Foster, to name a few.
He received his Bachelor of Music degree with highest distinction in 2008 before attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he earned both his MM and DMA in Jazz & Contemporary Media. At Eastman, he studied with artists Harold Danko and Bill Dobbins, and was a member of the Downbeat Award-winning Eastman New Jazz Ensemble, whose performance with renowned trombonist, composer, and arranger Bob Brookmeyer garnered international acclaim.
Actively sharing his passion for music with others, Weiser is on the faculty at Ithaca College and Cornell University and has given lectures and master classes at universities and institutions nationwide. He continues to teach privately while maintaining an extensive jazz and classical performance schedule throughout the Northeast.
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