Sitka Jazz Festival

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Sitka Jazz Festival is a jazz festival in the community of Sitka, Alaska for four days every February. It features educational clinics for participating students, evening concerts featuring professional jazz artists, and the All-Alaska Jazz Band—an audition-entrance honor ensemble for Alaskan high school students.

1 History
2 All-Alaska Jazz Band
3 Notable festival musicians
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

The Sitka Jazz Festival was born out of Sitka High School's "jazz nights." The jazz nights have occurred since 1995 and consisted of SHS ensembles and a guest professional artist playing both solo and with SHS ensembles. Jazz Nights brought distinguished artists such as trumpeter Claudio Roditi and saxophonist Andres Boiarsky. The festival eventually upgraded to accommodate multiple guest artists, clinics, out-of-town school jazz ensembles, and the venue was moved to the 1,500 seat Mt. Edgecumbe High School fieldhouse. The 2005 festival was housed in Sheldon Jackson College's Hames Center and in 2006 and 2007 the festival moved back to the Sitka High School gymnasium which, through an extensive overhaul, was turned into a temporary 500 seat auditorium. The Sitka Jazz Festival is modeled after the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho. The 2008 festival is slated to take place in Sitka's auditorium, which is currently under construction and designed for an 800 seat capacity.

[edit] All-Alaska Jazz Band

The All-Alaska Jazz Band is been in existence for just four years with Ira Nepus having directed its fourth year in 2007. It is independent from Alaska School Activities Association, but is the only honor jazz band in the state. It has featured students from is far north as Fairbanks and as far south as Ketchikan. Past guest directors include John Clayton, Bill Watrous, and Terell Stafford.