Chelsea Hughey’s Big Swing Face

We’re excited to host an entirely new local band assembled just for this event!

Chelsea Hughey's Big Swing Face is led by Chelsea Hughey, an Indianapolis native and Butler University’s Adjunct Professor of Drum Set, and her co-director Richard Dole. 

The ensemble will be a 10-piece band that includes members from across the state of Indiana. Artists to be highlighted by the ensemble will be Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and other greats of the time.

The band leader, Chelsea Hughey, is a jazz drummer, percussionist, and educator. She attended Butler University and received a B.A. in Music focusing on classical percussion and jazz studies. Chelsea attended New Jersey City University where she completed her MM in Jazz Performance. She studied with master drummer and composer Tim Horner, vibraphonist Mark Sherman, and Broadway drummers Paul Pizzuti and Jared Schonig. Chelsea earned her MBA in Music Business at SNHU and the Berklee School of Music. Throughout her freelance jazz career, Chelsea shared the stage with Indianapolis jazz legends Steve Allee, Rob Dixon, Frank Glover, and Frank Smith.

The co-director, Richard Dole, is an active tenor/bass trombonist and educator in Indianapolis and the surrounding region. He has toured or performed with Aretha Franklin, Johnny Mathis, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Steve Lawrence/Edie Gormé, Barry Manilow, the Hollywood Concert Orchestra China tour, and in 2008 traveled with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra to Egypt for a US State Department Tour. He has earned a Bachelor and Masters degree from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he studied with M. Dee Stewart, Ed Anderson, and Dr. David N. Baker. He is currently the jazz trombone instructor at Butler University and teaches a small dedicated number of students out of his home.