C’ville Jazz Society and WTJU Present: Charlottesville JazzFest—Young Lions of Jazz

JazzFest is committed to enhancing youth jazz education through performance opportunities and festival activities. The festival’s “Young Lions of Jazz” concert, featuring elementary school to collegiate musicians, highlights the qualities that jazz music imparts to students at every age.

Schedule

10:30AM-Trumpeter John D’earth leads a cadre of his 5th and 6th grade students from Walker Upper Elementary School to kick off a celebration of Charlottesville’s Young Lions of Jazz Matinee.

11:00AM-Lakeside Middle School musicians, led by band director, Robert Gregg, showcase the ways in which their music enhances the school’s core commitment to the idea that “creative excellence today prepares students to succeed in the changing and challenging world tomorrow.”

11:45AM-Saxophonist and UVA professor Dr. Jeff Decker provides a fascinating presentation on a little explored topic. He shows how, though it was initially used to suppress or distort Blackness, the packaging required by the introduction of larger, long-playing record “albums” eventually provided an opportunity for African American artists to carve a space for the presentation of agency and identity previously denied them. Scenes of students interacting with a recent presentation by Dr. Decker will be featured in The Paramount’s lobby.

12:30PM-Throughout the spring semester, public school band directors selected and rehearsed a multi-high school orchestra specially formed for the festival’s Young Lions of Jazz Matinee. Director Andrew LaPrade and others present this outstanding hand-picked group of musicians for whom jazz encourages an ability to innovate and collaborate in both their art and in their lives.

1:15PM-Select UVA students and faculty, led by Instructor of Jazz and Classical Guitar, Michael Rosensky, bring our student Young Lions of Jazz performances full circle. They demonstrate the University Jazz Program’s focus on developing the individual voices of jazz students, following the Duke Ellington model, which allows and encourages the distinct musical personalities of artists to create the overall sound and direction of the music.