Music 

Blackburn High School becomes the first Australian school band ever invited to compete in the world’s top youth jazz competition

Blackburn High School’s Senior Jazz Orchestra is the first school band from the Southern Hemisphere to win the honour of performing at the Essentially Ellington jazz competition in New York. 

The Blackburn High School students will join jazz supremo Wynton Marsalis and the USA’s best school jazz bands when they become the first school band from Australia chosen to perform live at this years’ competition in May. 

Held at the Lincoln Centre in New York City, Essentially Ellington is the most prestigious youth jazz event of its type in the world. 

This year marks the competition’s 30th anniversary. 

The Blackburn High School jazz band is one of only three school bands outside the United States selected to perform in the prestigious competition after winning one of the top three spots in the international audition for school bands. 

The other non-US school jazz bands invited to compete in the final competition in New York are the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, from Barcelona, Spain, and Tomisato High School from Chiba, Japan. 

A total of 30 school jazz bands will compete to be acknowledged as the best student jazz ensemble in the world. Recognised as one of Australia’s leading music programs, Blackburn High School conducted an exhaustive audition process among its music students, before naming 21 students to represent Australia. 

Led by teacher Andrew O’Connell, the band are currently busy preparing for what will be an opportunity of a lifetime to perform on the world stage at one of the world’s most famous music venues.

This has had a positive effect not only on the students participating in the tours, but the program in general. It has been so rewarding to watch the standard lifting across the entire program. This is not only due to the work each individual is doing and the calm leadership of our teachers, but the way our students are lifting each other. Our young leaders are doing a lot of work to make this happen. Led by Music Captains, Anna Yamazaki and Jasmine Richards, we are currently growing this year’s leadership group as we add our new ensemble leaders.

Many performances are about to begin for our 23 ensembles, with a number outlined in this edition of Music Notes. We hope that you can join us for these performances to support and celebrate our students’ work. 

Mr Jason Ziino - Director of Music

Jazz After Dark

Our jazz ensembles are set to perform at Jazz After Dark on Thursday, April 24.

This event marks the final opportunity for all ensembles heading to Generations in Jazz and Essentially Ellington to showcase their programs before their departure. 

Additionally, it will be the first time BHS utilizes the facilities at The Round, in Nunawading representing another significant advancement for the program.

Purchase tickets via the link below:

https://www.theround.com.au/whats-on/jazz-after-dark-blackburn-high-school

Ensemble Updates

Choir: 

Blackburn’s Concert Choir has already begun rehearsing for the exciting year they have ahead. One of the highlights coming up will be performing an Eric Whitacre piece called ‘Glow’ together with Blackburn’s Chamber String Orchestra for the mid-year concert.  This year’s repertoire will include singing in a range of styles and languages. In June, our singers will have an opportunity to participate in a choral workshop at Blackburn with several other schools and conductors working together on a variety of repertoire for the day.

 We are looking forward to watching the choir continue to develop and grow this year! 

 Danielle Vita & Liam Whitbourn 

Concert Strings: 

Exciting things are happening in the string department at Blackburn! Our string students are looking forward to the exciting program that we have planned for the mid-year concerts as well as a string improvisation workshop being held at Blackburn with award-winning artist Xani, planned for early July.  Blackburn’s Concert Strings have been off to a strong start, already having performed at the year 7 orientation in our second week back at school. I’m looking forward to all the growth and development that will happen this year! 

Danielle Vita 

Upcoming Dates for Music Events