The Corey Christiansen Quartet, featuring jazz-guitarist and Mel Bay senior editor Corey Christiansen, will play the Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis on Wednesday, June 22nd at 7 p.m.

Awakening, the quartet's first CD and the first release on Mel Bay Records, recently spent twelve weeks on the JazzWeek chart, reaching #16 on March 2nd. Corey composed the title track, which consistently receives the most airplay from the recording.

Corey is also scheduled for mainstage appearances at the Syracuse (New York) Jazz Festival on June 26th, the Festival of the Midnight Sun in Helsinki, Finland on July 18th, and the Webster Groves (Missouri) Jazz Festival on September 17th. Corey's opening for Bill Frisell at the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis on September 23rd and headlining for the third consecutive year at the Smithsonian Jazz Café on November 18th.

Corey performed at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho in February, his third date at the festival, where he was named Outstanding College Guitar Soloist in 1995 and 1996 and Outstanding College Guitarist in the big band division in 1995. Corey made his third appearance at John Pisano's Guitar Night at Spazio in Los Angeles in January, followed by a performance at the Eastman Guitars NAMM concert in Anaheim. In March he spent two weeks playing concerts and conducting clinics in Australia.