Sitka Jazz Festival

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.

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 2009 festival is slated to take place in Sitka's auditorium, which is currently under construction and designed for an 700 seat capacity.

All-Alaska Jazz Band

The All-Alaska Jazz Band has been in existence for just four years with Rick Condit on tap to direct its fifth year in 2008. The jazz band 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.

Notable festival musicians

*John Clayton
*Freddie Cole quartet
*Paquito D'Rivera
*Roberta Gamberini
*Ingrid Jensen
*Mansound
*Claudio Roditi
*Lembit Saarsalu
*Terell Stafford
*Steve Turre
*Leonid Vintskevich
*Bill Watrous
*Alon Yavnai

ee also

*List of jazz festivals

External links

* [http://www.sitkajazzfestival.com Official Site]