Essentially Ellington

The Jazz Orchestra has had a busy performance schedule, having both performed as part of the Essentially Ellington Festival and the Australian Music Education Board Centenary Launch.

The Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Festival is an annual high school jazz festival that takes place every May at Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) in New York City. The festival is aimed at encouraging young musicians to play music by Duke Ellington.  Duke Ellington’s music is at the very heart of America’s 20th-century musical heritage and the core of the rich canon of jazz music. Jazz at Lincoln Center, committed to instilling a broader understanding of this music, created the Essentially Ellington program (EE) during the 1995–96 school year to make Ellington’s music accessible to as many high school musicians as possible and to support the development of their schools’ music programs. As part of their outreach program for the past three years they have been offering this experience to musicians in Australia. This entails two Lincoln Center clinicians travelling to Australia to help adjudicate and run workshops. This year they were Vincent Gardner (trombonist for the Ellington Orchestra) and Jerome Jennings (professor at the Julliard School of Music). The Northcote High Jazz Orchestra performed three pieces: The Sheik of Araby (Harry B. Smith and Francis Wheeler), Aries Mood (Mary Lou Williams) and Brassiliance (Duke Ellington).