Monday, April 5, 2010

Middle School Jazz Festival

By: Amy Dotson

On April 29th, 2010 the Ashford School Jazz Band will be participating in a new middle school jazz festival sponsored by the University of Connecticut's Community School of the Arts (CSA). Coventry, Woodstock and Mansfield will join Ashford School in this afternoon long event to be held at E.O. Smith High School. Each group will perform 20 minutes of music and spend 45 minutes with an adjudicator. After the adjudication session, students from all schools will be broken up by instrument and attend an instrument specific master class to be taught by a CSA faculty member. All students will then take part in an improvisation masterclass led by Topher Logan and finish the day with a concert by Connecticut big band, The Screamin' Eagles. The Screamin' Eagles concert will be open to the public and held in the E.O. Smith auditorium at 6:30; tickets are free for festival participants and $5.00 for the public. Any questions may be directed to Amy Dotson at AshfordBand@gmail.com