Junior tenor saxophonist Andrew Durham recently spent two days in downtown Peoria playing music with the best HS jazzers in Illinois. When you ask him about the experience, he speaks of how humbling it was to be there and how he knows he'll have to work hard to get back next year. He also just said "awesome" a lot.
Andrew was selected to perform as the lead tenor in the Illinois Music Educators All-State Jazz Band. The road to this concert was long. He started preparing the music last April when Mr. Freesen put the audition tune in front of the Jazz Ensemble. In October, he auditioned at the district level where he was named lead tenor and was a featured sololist for District 3. In early December, he was informed that he would be making the trip to Peoria for the All-State Conference which is the highest level honor group in the state.
The group spent many hours a day rehearsing with fantastic clinicians. During the breaks, the students wouldn't even stop playing! All the hard work paid off for the students at Jazz Night. On Friday, the students rehearsed on the Civic Center Theatre stage and then performed there later that night for a huge crowd. The audience was enthusiastic about the performances by all the participating students who come from programs all over Illinois.
"I was honored to take a student to the festival this year. This was the first time the EPG schools have sent a student to the conference for instrumental music and it couldn't have been a better student-musician than Andrew. We will work hard and hopefully have more students get to experience this in the future."-Mr. F
(Article originally appeared on http://www.unit11.org/)
Andrew was selected to perform as the lead tenor in the Illinois Music Educators All-State Jazz Band. The road to this concert was long. He started preparing the music last April when Mr. Freesen put the audition tune in front of the Jazz Ensemble. In October, he auditioned at the district level where he was named lead tenor and was a featured sololist for District 3. In early December, he was informed that he would be making the trip to Peoria for the All-State Conference which is the highest level honor group in the state.
The group spent many hours a day rehearsing with fantastic clinicians. During the breaks, the students wouldn't even stop playing! All the hard work paid off for the students at Jazz Night. On Friday, the students rehearsed on the Civic Center Theatre stage and then performed there later that night for a huge crowd. The audience was enthusiastic about the performances by all the participating students who come from programs all over Illinois.
"I was honored to take a student to the festival this year. This was the first time the EPG schools have sent a student to the conference for instrumental music and it couldn't have been a better student-musician than Andrew. We will work hard and hopefully have more students get to experience this in the future."-Mr. F
(Article originally appeared on http://www.unit11.org/)
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