Brisbane’s Jazz Music Institute (JMI) and New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) are teaming up to bring a new and exciting festival to Australia in August this year.
The Essentially Ellington Down Under Regional Festival will be making its debut in Australia and be swinging by Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney offering high school jazz bands and music directors and musicians of all sorts, some excellent performance and professional development opportunities.
Essentially Ellington is a noncompetitive festival, designed to offer high school jazz bands of all performance levels the opportunity to perform the music of Duke Ellington and other big band composers, and to receive professional feedback from Jazz at Lincoln Center clinicians and other jazz professionals from within their own communities.
Alongside this no doubt invaluable feedback, free resources will also be provided to participants, including transcriptions of the original big band charts – from composers and band leaders including Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie.
In the 19 year history of the festival, Jazz at Lincoln Centre has distributed more than 120,000 charts to more than 4,200 schools, helping to bring big band jazz to over 504,000 students across the US and other countries.
Chief Executive Officer at the Jazz Music Institute Nick Quigly has described the festival as “an opportunity for aspiring young musicians and music teachers to share the great talent we’ve got going on here in Australia, whilst interacting with some of the biggest names and the most inspiring musicians and educators around today.”
The Essentially Ellington Down Under Regional Festival will take place at the following venues:
Brisbane – 4th August – South Bank Institute of Tafe C Block
Perth – 7th August – Carey College
Melbourne – 10th August – Darebin Arts and Entertainment Complex
Sydney – 12th August – SIMA Sound Lounge
To register for Essentially Ellington and to access the free resources (scores and charts) become a member by signing up to the Essentially Ellington 2015-16 program, for free, at www.jazz.org/ee
Band directors can enter their ensembles into the Essentially Ellington Down Under Regional Festival and for $500 will receive adjudication from a Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra clinician from the US and a local adjudicator and will then rceive a private workshop with their JLCO adjudicator/clinician after the performance.
The Essentially Ellington teacher’s conference (which is not only open to teachers but also non teachers – musicians, students and interested parties) will continue to run in conjunction with the festival and anyone interested can sign up via the Jazz Music Institute (JMI) website www.jazz.qld.edu.au
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