Vocalist Nancy Osborne

THOUSAND OAKS, CA - The annual concert of big band music and love songs celebrating Valentine’s Day will be held at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at California Lutheran University.

“A Valentine Concert: Elmer Ramsey, His Trumpet and Orchestra” will be presented in Samuelson Chapel. Ramsey and the Conejo Pops Orchestra will perform music from great artists of the big band era, including Artie Shaw, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie. The program also includes endearing love songs from World War II.

Dynamic vocalist Nancy Osborne will perform. The Westlake Village resident has performed with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Tex Beneke and Johnny Vana’s Big Band Alumni, with whom she made two CDs and a DVD, and as a television and film actor. Osborne also produced her own 17-piece big band CD, “Hot Swing, Cool Jazz.”

Also featured will be Camarillo vocalist Damian Gravino, a veteran of local musical theater productions who played Daddy Warbucks in last year’s Camarillo Community Theatre production of “Annie.”

Daniel Geeting, a member of the CLU music faculty since 1984, will be featured on clarinet. He has performed extensively as a recitalist, played on movie and television soundtracks, and recorded two CDs featuring the clarinet works of major English composers.

Ramsey, a CLU professor emeritus of music, began playing trumpet professionally at the age of 14, and three years later had his own ’40s-style big band on a Washington radio station. Many members of his orchestra are CLU alumni and have also performed with Harry James, Glenn Miller and Tex Beneke orchestras.

Admission is $10 for students and $20 for others.

The chapel is located south of Olsen Road near Campus Drive on the Thousand Oaks campus. For more information, call the Music Department at 805-493-3306 or visit http://www.callutheran.edu/music.