The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Students perform in Berklee Jazz Festival
BOSTON — Berklee College of Music held its 50th annual Berklee High School Jazz Festival, the country’s largest high school jazz competition, on Feb. 10 at Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
More than 3,000 high school students, who comprise over 215 bands and vocal ensembles, competed for $175,000 in scholarships to various Berklee summer programs.
The festival included high school ensembles from 13 states, including all of New England, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Among the participating ensembles were a group of musicians from Litchfield High School. LHS student Devlin Tenney won an award for Outstanding Musicianship at the festival.
Throughout the day, all ensembles were adjudicated by a panel of Berklee’s top faculty and receive a written critique of their performances. Top-ranked ensembles will be awarded partial scholarships to Berklee’s Five Week Summer Performance Program, and individual students are invited to audition for tuition scholarships towards the full-time program or the Five Week Summer Performance Program.
The free event, which was open to the public, featured performances or workshops by National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Ellis Marsalis and Delfeayo Marsalis B.M.’'89, in addition to workshops by jazz groups 7th Degree and House of Waters, a performance by the Berklee Concert Jazz Orchestra, and an awards presentation honoring high school ensembles, singers, composers, musicians, and educators.
As part of the festival’s 50th anniversary celebration, Ellis Marsalis received an honorary Doctorate of Music degree from Berklee at the awards ceremony. Marsalis is regarded by jazz lovers and critics alike as among the world’s premier modern jazz pianists and bandleaders, and has more than 20 albums to his name, according to a release from Berklee. He is also one of the foremost jazz educators of all time, having taught lauded musicians and composers such as Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., and Donald Harrison Jr., among many others, including four of his highly accomplished sons who are also well-known musicians, composers, and educators: trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, saxophonist and Berklee alumnus Branford Marsalis '80 '06H, trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis (also a Berklee alumnus), and drummer and vibraphonist Jason Marsalis. In 2011, the Marsalis family became the first-ever group recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters award.