“Concert for Kids” Kicks off 57th Monterey Jazz Festival Weekend
with Free Jazz Concert at Monterey County Fairgrounds,
September 18, 2014
Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Jazz Orchestra
Performs for Hundreds of Monterey County Public School Music Students
Saxophonist Emery Mesich Named 18th Jimmy Lyons Scholar
at Berklee College of Music
September 16, 2014; Monterey, CA; Monterey Jazz Festival kicks off the weekend’s activities this Thursday with another edition of the “Concert for Kids” at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, with Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Jazz Orchestra performing a free 45-minute set for students enrolled in Monterey County public schools. The concert will start at 11:15 a.m. sharp on Thursday, September 18 at the Garden Stage at the Monterey Fairgrounds.
The pre-Festival “Concert for Kids” has been a tradition at the Monterey Jazz Festival for over 20 years, inviting students from Monterey County middle and high schools to the free event every year, with an estimated 500 students attending annually. The concert is part of an outreach effort by Monterey Jazz Festival to bring jazz music, for free, to the students of Monterey County.
Created as a part of Monterey Jazz Festival’s continuing commitment to jazz education, members of the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra were selected through an application and audition process during the Next Generation Jazz Festival each spring.
Twenty-one high school musicians from six states comprise the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, including California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington State.
Five members of the orchestra are returning, including baritone saxophonist Henry Solomon (Interlochen Arts Academy, Interlochen, Mich.); trombonist Coleman Hughes (Newark Academy, Livingston, N.J.); Andrew Stephens (Rio Americano High School, Sacramento, Calif.); drummer Cameron MacIntosh (Columbia High School, (Maplewood, N.J.); and bassist Daryl Johns (Dwight-Englewood School, Englewood, N.J.), who is the first bassist to make the group four years in a row, and is only the third musician to do so in the band’s 43-year history. Read the biographies of the 2014 members here.
The Orchestra performs twice on the Jimmy Lyons Stage at the 57th Monterey Jazz Festival on Sunday, September 21. The 2014 Artist-In-Residence, Eric Harland, will appear with the band at 12:30pm, and the Orchestra then will close out the Festival at 8:45pm as the backing band for Michael Feinstein’s Sinatra Project, with soloists Russell Malone and Harry Allen.
In the past, the band has been under the leadership of Ladd McIntosh, Don Schamber, Benny Golson, Bill Berry, and more. Now under the tutelage of Paul Contos, the renowned saxophonist and flutist who serves as the director of the Orchestra, the ensemble is dedicated to the study and performance of the most challenging big band literature available. Former members include pianist Patrice Rushen and Benny Green, bassist Larry Grenadier, drummer Chad Wackerman, trumpeters Ambrose Akinmusire and Dominick Farinacci; saxophonists Eric Marienthal, Donny McCaslin, Joshua Redman, Mark Turner, and Dave Koz; trombonist Andy Martin; and big band leader Gordon Goodwin.
Monterey Jazz Festival invests over $500,000 annually in its Education Program which includes jazz clinics in schools, Summer Jazz Camp, the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra and more. Support for the 2014 Next Generation Jazz Orchestra comes from the Surdna Foundation and many individual donors.
In related news, Berklee College of Music and the Monterey Jazz Festival announce that lead alto saxophonist Emery Mesich of Sacramento, California, is the 18th recipient of the Jimmy Lyons Scholarship at Berklee, a major music education prize. The full-tuition scholarship is named in honor of the festival’s late founder, James L. (Jimmy) Lyons, who began the festival 57 years ago with jazz education at its core. Mesich is also a member of the 2014 Next Generation Jazz Orchestra.
The Lyons Scholarship is awarded each year to one music student from the Western United States, in recognition of their outstanding talent. Because it is a full-tuition, renewable award, satisfactory academic and musical progress in each successive year will allow each Lyons Scholar to attend Berklee through graduation, entirely tuition-free.
Previous Lyons Scholars include saxophonist Dayna Stephens, pianist Milton Fletcher, cellist Rushad Eggleston, drummers James Williams and Jonathan Pinson, and violinist Alex Hargreaves, among others.
In pursuit of his passion for jazz and contemporary music, Mesich (pron. MEH–sitch) began his studies at Berklee in Boston early this month. At Monterey, he will perform twice with the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, and sit in twice with his new Berklee classmates in the Sarah McKenzie Quintet on Friday, Sept. 19 at 9:30 p.m. on the Garden Stage, and again on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 5:30 p.m., in the Coffee House.
Monterey Jazz Festival Trustee Carsbia Anderson, chair of the Festival’s Education Committee, and Berklee alumnus Walter Smith III will make the Jimmy Lyons presentation to Emery Mesich at the festival on Sunday, September 21, at 1:30 p.m., on the Jimmy Lyons Stage.
Saxophonist Emery Mesich, 18, graduated from Folsom High School in Folsom, California, where he performed as lead alto saxophone for the Folsom High School Jazz Band I, the Sacramento State University One O’clock Band, and the Mondavi Center SFJAZZ High School All-Stars. Beginning his musical studies on clarinet at age eight, Emery became a four-year member of the Sacramento Youth Symphony and began playing in various community concert bands. After he picked up saxophone at age 10, Emery played in the American River College Jazz Band, recording with the group at Skywalker Ranch.
Emery has won multiple soloist awards from the Reno Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Jazz Festival, the Charles Mingus and Essentially Ellington High School Competitions, and DownBeat Magazine. In 2013, he was awarded a full scholarship to the Berklee Five-Week Summer Jazz Camp for the Jazz Workshop under the direction of Terri Lyne Carrington.
Emery has led various ensembles of his own in the Sacramento area, playing reggae, jazz, R&B, and original music. He currently leads This Hiatus, which released an album in 2013. This is his first time in the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. He begins his Berklee studies early this month.
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For more information please contact:
Timothy Orr, Marketing Associate
Monterey Jazz Festival
Direct Line: 510.652.1122
Monterey Office: 831.373.3366
[email protected]
www.montereyjazzfestival.org
or
Rob Hayes
Asst. VP for Public Information
Berklee College of Music
617.747.2566 (office) or 617.331.4424 (cell)
[email protected]
www.berklee.edu