Three Medfield Jazz Ensembles Earn Gold at State Festival

(Updated 4/29 with new information)

At the statewide Massachusetts Association for Jazz Educators Combo/Choir Festival on April 27 in Wellesley, the Medfield High School Jazz Combo and Jazz Choir, plus Junior Jazz Choir, earned the top Gold award for outstanding performances.

All three Medfield ensembles will now take the Hatch Shell stage in Boston at a May 19 MAJE Gold Showcase performance along with other schools that earned that high level of distinction (performance times for Medfield will be announced in about a week).

The Medfield High School Jazz Choir, directed by Ann Marie Tremblay, is comprised of 21 students who are also members of "Sound Waves," an MHS a cappella group. This is the third consecutive year the MHS Jazz Choir has earned a Gold award at the MAJE Festival.

The Junior Jazz Choir, also directed by Tremblay, is comprised of both high school and middle school students, with 23 members total. This is the first time Junior Jazz has ever participated in any kind of adjudicated music festival, so this Gold MAJE award has special meaning.

The Medfield High School Jazz Combo is partly student-run/directed and comprised of eight members of the 25-student MHS Jazz Band directed by Jason Bielik. This is the first time in a number of years that an MHS Jazz Combo has earned Gold. MAJE Combo members were: Jack Shurtleff (drums/percussion), Peter Moiseyev (bass), Francis Brooke (piano), Lukas Donner (guitar/percussion), Ethan Ni (sax), Joe Pagliazzo (trombone), and Alana Potts (vocals/percussion); performing with the Combo at Jazz Night was also Ross Johnson (percussion).

Working with the MHS Jazz Combo this year was long-time music/jazz educator George Murphy, who recently received the 2019 MAJE Lifetime Achievement Award.

Among all three Medfield jazz ensembles earning Gold MAJE awards, 17 of the student members also earned either 2019 Junior or Senior District status for Chorus, Band or Jazz Band; three earned All-State Chorus status; and one (Matthew McGrory) earned All-Eastern Chorus status, an especially big achievement.

In other news for April 27, the honors-level MHS Chamber Strings ensemble directed by Hayley Leach and comprised of students from Orchestra, earned Silver at the Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral Conductors Association (MICCA) festival.

All students in the Medfield High School honors ensembles are also members of either Concert Choir, Concert Band or String Orchestra -- groups that also earned Silver medals at recent MICCA festivals.

The Medfield community can see all of the various high school music ensembles perform at the annual Pops concert in the MHS gym on Saturday, May 18. Ticket information for the general public should be available the week of May 6.