“CONCERT FOR KIDS” KICKS OFF 2015 MONTEREY JAZZ ACTIVITIES ON SEPT. 17
By Matt Micucci
For the past 25 years, the Monterey Jazz Festival invites students from Monterey County middle and high schools to the free events “Concert for Kids”, with an estimated 500 students attending annually. This year, Concert for Kids will be taking place at the Monterey Fairgrounds where the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra will be performing a free 45-minute set for students enrolled in Monterey County public schools.
The event was created as part of Monterey Jazz Festival’s continuing commitment to jazz education, and is part of an outreach effort by Monterey Jazz Festival to bring jazz for free to the students of Monterey County.
Members of the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra were selected through an application and audition process during the Next Generation Jazz Festival, which takes place each spring. It is comprised of twenty-one high school musicians from seven states, including California, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In the past, the band has been under the leadership of Ladd McIntosh, Don Schamber, Benny Golson, Bill Berry, and more.
On top of their performance on Thursday, September 17 at the Garden Stage Presented by HepcHope.com at the Monterey Fairgrounds, which serves as a pre-festival event to kick off this year’s Monterey Jazz Festival’s activities, The Orchestra performs on the Jimmy Lyons Stage at the 58th Monterey Jazz Festival on Sunday, September 20 at 12:30 p.m. on the Jimmy Lyons Stage in the Arena with 2015 Artist-In-Residence, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Wynton Marsalis and Ted Nash.
Monterey Jazz Festival invests over $500,000 annually in its education program which includes jazz clinics in schools, a Summer Jazz Camp, the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, and more.
The 58th annual Monterey Jazz Festival runs from the 18th to the 20th of September. For more information visit their website ->http://www.montereyjazzfestival.org/<-