Jazz Choirs R&S Activities

Dates for the 2011 NCDA Jazz Festivals are below. YES I SAID FESTIVALS!  We are adding the western site in North Platte hoping to serve more directors in that part of the state. 

The clinicians for this year are Kerry Marsh and his wife, Julia Dolison from Sacramento State University. They will be working at both festivals as well as performing music from their latest CD, Vertical Voices: The Music of Maria Schneider, produced in March 2010.

Kerry Marsh is a composer and arranger specializing in contemporary music for vocal jazz ensembles.  In high demand as a commissioned arranger for many of the nation's top educational vocal and instrumental jazz ensembles, Marsh has a large and varied catalog of music performed regularly around the world.  Kerry has published arrangements through UNC Jazz Press and Sound Music Publications.  Kerry has recently joined the faculty of The JazzSchool Institute in Berkeley, CA, where he serves as a vocal jazz ensemble director.  Marsh is busy year-round as an adjudicator and clinician for jazz festivals and workshops and he serves as a traveling clinician and high school honor vocal jazz ensemble director for the Monterey Jazz Festival.  Marsh has directed all-state jazz choirs in California, Arizona, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wyoming and Illinois and will direct the New York All State Jazz Choir in 2010.

Julia Dollison is currently the vocal jazz program coordinator and applied jazz voice instructor at Sacramento State, winning ten total DownBeat Student Music Awards for Best College Vocal Jazz Ensemble, Best Collegiate Jazz Arrangement and Outstanding Jazz Vocal Soloist since 2005. She has also served locally as an assistant director for the DownBeat award-winning vocal jazz ensembles at American River College and Folsom High School.

Please write these dates down because we hope you will be able to attend. Remember, we fill slots as checks and entry forms arrive.

College, High School, and Middle School groups are welcome at both festivals.

Monday, March 14, 2011         Columbus High School

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011      North Platte High School

MULTIPLE PERFORMANCE OPPORTUNITIES.  All festivals will begin in the morning and run throughout the day.  Each group will have a main stage performance with our clinicians Kerry Marsh and Julia Dolison, as well as a follow-up clinic in the choir room with another clinician.  There will be breakout sessions that your students will attend as well as the “Parade of Choirs” at the end of the day where everyone sings one more time for all the groups! 

The festivals are restricted to Nebraska schools and directors that are members of NCDA receive a discounted registration fee. Please click on the Membership to find a membership registration form, which you can fill out and mail to Gene Wagner at the address listed on the form.