By Jill Yesko, University Relations
GREENSBORO, N.C. - The top 18 high school jazz drummers, saxophonists, trumpeters, guitarists, pianists and trombonists from across North Carolina will gather Nov. 18 and 19 for a weekend of big band rehearsals, clinics, master classes and performances as part of the UNCG High School Honors Jazz Band.
This is the seventh year that Steve Haines, associate professor of music and director of the Miles Davis Program in Jazz Studies, has organized the band. This year, renowned saxophonist Mike Murley will join the UNCG Jazz Ensemble and the Honors Jazz Band for a concert Sunday, Nov. 19, at 1:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the School of Music at UNCG.
Murley has been named saxophonist of the year eight times by the Jazz Report Awards and National Jazz Awards. He will conduct student clinics and serve as a jazz mentor during the event. Past guest participants at the Honors Jazz Band weekend have included pianist Ellis Marsalis, the father of America’s greatest jazz family.
“It’s a great honor to host the best jazz students in the state,” Haines said. “The students will receive an incredible immersion into the language of jazz.”
The students, who were selected from more than 100 audition tapes and CDs, will spend all day Saturday attending clinics and honing their jazz skills in rehearsals with the UNCG Jazz Ensemble. The Jazz Ensemble is the flagship of the Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program. Comprised of jazz studies majors, it has been featured in concerts throughout the United States, on radio and television.
Music to be performed by the Honors Band includes selections from Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Count Basie and Charlie Mingus.
Sunday concert tickets are $10 for adults, $6 for seniors and $4 for students. Tickets are available at the UNCG Box Office at (336) 334-4894 or online at http://boxoffice.uncg.edu/tickets. For more information about the UNCG jazz program, contact Steve Haines at sjhaines@uncg.edu.
The concert is co-sponsored by KinderMusik, Jamey Aebersold, Downbeat magazine and the School of Music at UNCG.
