Members of the Bonners Ferry High School Jazz band past and present are traveling to Moscow, Idaho, April 22-25 to attend the 59th annual Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in the ICCU arena at the University of Idaho, and between then and now they’ll be working hard to raise funds to help cover the costs of all that jazz.
At 5 p.m. Friday, March 13, they will be at the Rex Theater to perform in concert and host a bake sale, both events by donation.
The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival is the biggest jazz education event in he northwest. Schools as far as Alaska and Nevada come to compete in the performance competition and participate in all the festival has to offer.
The event features four days of world-class concerts, educational workshops, and student performances. Headliners include Summer Camargo, Tito Puente, Jr., Warren Wolf and Jazzmeia Horn.
Founded in 1967, the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival provides students with an immersion into jazz. While they are there, they get to attend jazz workshops that vary from jazz history to improv clinics to Broadway dance to jazz in anime. These workshops are hosted by professional jazz artists and educators, most of whom are University of Idaho music professors.
All classes are presented in university classrooms, giving students a glimpse into the life of a university student in addition to an in-depth look into different facets of jazz. They also get the opportunity to perform for and be critiqued by professional jazz adjudicators/clinicians and compete for the chance to perform in one of the evening concerts on the Kibbie Dome stage. These concerts feature the top student groups from each day in addition to University of Idaho jazz ensembles and professional jazz artists from around the world.
According to band director Mallerie Moore, the goal this year is to be able to attend the festival for all four days and be able to truly take in all that it has to offer.
“Last year we were able to go for two of the four days and it was an amazing experience,”Mallerie said. “To go all four days would be even better. Our band has also nearly doubled since last year, so we have a bunch of new people for whom this will be their first ever experience of the festival. The hope is to make it the best experience possible!”