Jazz Outreach Initiative was pleased to receive grant funds from Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities to re-engage our CCSD secondary schools with a free program licensed to JOI by Jazz at Lincoln Center.
This program is led by JOI VP Education & Programming Gary Cordell who takes students on an engaging, informative, and interactive journey through the life and music of a jazz luminary, teaching the history of the artist and their role in the further development of the great American art form, jazz. As the narrator talks about the artist, their music is performed by our JOI Sextet (members of our acclaimed JOI Jazz Orchestra) creating a tangible link between history and music.
In late January, JOI performed for the Advanced Technologies Academy (A-Tech) which has a friend of ours as their principal, Dr. Anthony Marentic. Their new jazz band director, Dr. Brian Farias previously taught elementary music at a Title 1 school where we performed a Buzzin' In Brass performance last year. In this new role with this brand new jazz program, he wanted to introduce his students to Miles Davis's life story and music. Approximately 175 students attended the presentation and everyone was thrilled with the program!
If you are a secondary band director and would like to schedule either a Buzzin in Brass for elementary school (Title 1 only, sponsored in part by The Smith Center) or Jazz for Young People, we'd be thrilled to provide that to your school at no cost thanks to our many donors, sponsors, and grants! Email us at info@joi-lv.org for more information!