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JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER 14th ANNUAL
ESSENTIALLY ELLINGTON
HIGH SCHOOL JAZZ BAND COMPETITION & FESTIVAL
"Essentially Ellington...showcases all facets of Jazz at Lincoln Center working and swinging together; performing at the highest level, educating students and teachers about the rich heritage of jazz, publishing scores and creating a legacy of this music for future generations."
- MI2N/Music Industry News Network
The annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival is one of the most innovative jazz education events in the world. Each year, high school musicians from across North America travel to New York City to spend three days immersed in workshops, jam sessions, rehearsals and performances at the "House of Swing," Jazz at Lincoln Center's home, Frederick P. Rose Hall.
"Essentially Ellington is the Cadillac of high school jazz competitions."
- The Seattle Times
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The Competition & Festival, held each May, is the culmination of the year-long Essentially Ellington program, during which members are invited to submit a recording and 15 finalist bands are selected through a
rigorous screening process. Each finalist band receives an in-school workshop in their community led by a professional musician before coming to New York to put up their Dukes and perform before Wynton Marsalis and a panel of esteemed judges. In the past, finalist bands have had the priviledge to work with such workshop clinicians as trumpeter Terell Stafford; Ronald Carter, the widely respected jazz educator; Justin DiCioccio, director of Jazz Studies at Manhattan School of Music; saxophonist Loren Schoenberg; Reggie Thomas, pianist and educator; as well as Jazz at Lincoln Center's own Victor Goines. Among the past judges have been former Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra conductor and arranger David Berger; Gunther Schuller, who, according to All Music Guide, "is composer, conductor, horn player, jazz performer, writer, administrator, publisher, and teacher, all wrapped up into one tiny bundle of seemingly endless energy"; Pulitzer Prize-nominated jazz musician and composer David Baker; and who else but Wynton Marsalis himself.
"Some of these bands are good enough to have yielded musicians who now play with the [Jazz at] Lincoln Center band itself."
- The New York Times
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The festival concludes with a final evening Concert and Awards Ceremony open to the public at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall featuring the three top-placing bands and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalist.
Since 1997, eighty finalist bands have come to the great stages of New York City to compete in the Competition & Festival. EE alumni continue to saturate the jazz scene - teaching, performing and carrying on the vital legacy of Duke Ellington's music. Among such alumni include the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra's very own Carlos Henriquez, bassist.
This year's 14th Annual Competition & Festival will be held on May 8-10, 2009.
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Jazz at Lincoln Center
Essentially Ellington
33 West 60th Street
New York, NY 10023
Email: ee@jalc.org
Phone: (212) 258-9812
Fax: (212) 258-9900
For general inquiries about Jazz at Lincoln Center, please click here.
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