Foxborough High School Band to Compete for Chance to Play With Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize Winner

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s prestigious Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival. Held each May, the Competition & Festival is the culmination of the yearlong Essentially Ellington program, which distributes free music and supplemental resources to high school and college jazz ensembles throughout the U.S., Canada, and American schools abroad.

On May 7, fifteen of the nation’s best high school bands will arrive in NYC to spend three days immersed in workshops, jam sessions, rehearsals and performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center. On May 9, the competition & Festival will conclude with a concert and awards ceremony featuring the three top-placing bands and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.

“Essentially Ellington is based on the music of Duke Ellington – who had the most comprehensive and profound body of music in the 20th century – and his values. The program uses quality literature to teach kids the meaning of jazz. The competition helps raise the level of musicianship and level of soul in our country. It doesn’t matter if you are a jazz musician or not. Duke’s music will touch you and give you the ability to improvise in any field,” said Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Managing and Artistic Director, Wynton Marsalis.

In February, Jazz at Lincoln Center proudly announced the 15 finalist bands that will compete in this year’s most innovative jazz education events in the world – at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s home, Frederick P. Rose Hall, on May 7- 9, 2015. Here are the 2015 Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition Finalists:

• Agoura High School (Agoura Hills, CA)
• American Music Program (Portland, OR)
• Beloit Memorial High School (Beloit, WI)
• Community Arts Program (Coral Gables, FL)
• Dillard Center for the Arts (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
• Foxboro High School (Foxboro, MA)
• Garfield High School (Seattle, WA)
• Lexington High School (Lexington, MA)
• Lyons Township High School (LaGrange, IL)
• Mount Si High School (Snoqualmie, WA)
• New World School of the Arts (Miami, FL)
• Newark Academy (Livingston, NJ)
• Roosevelt High School (Seattle, WA)
• Sun Prairie High School (Sun Prairie, WI)
• Tucson Jazz Institute (Tucson, AZ)

The 15 finalists were selected through a rigorous screening process and each finalist band received an in-school workshop led by a professional musician before coming to New York to put up their “Dukes” and perform before Wynton Marsalis and a panel of esteemed judges.