This week, audiences were able to enjoy various types of music as the Symphonic Winds performed Tuesday, while the jazz ensemble performed Thursday and is hosting a jazz festival with a 12:30 p.m. performance.
Jazz Ensemble Director J.D. Parr said Thursday was the jazz ensemble’s first formal concert, which was meant to be an opening event for today’s jazz festival. This is the ninth year Baker University has held the festival.
Parr said each year he brings in a guest artist to perform with the ensemble and help judge at the festival. This year, Jeff Bair, a jazz saxophonist and professor of jazz studies at East Carolina University in North Carolina will join the festivities.
“(He performed) with our jazz ensemble Thursday night as a guest soloist, and then (today) he will lead a team of judges, which will include four area jazz musicians,” Parr said.
Parr said the jazz ensemble will perform for the participating bands this afternoon and will feature Bair as a saxophone soloist. Parr said the judges will be there to judge the 17 high school bands participating.
“They will listen to these 17 high school jazz bands, and they will give them ratings and critique them and provide a teaching clinic for each one,” Parr said.
Parr said Bair will also offer lessons to some of the saxophone players who are music majors and will also teach a clinic on how to improvise.
Parr said the jazz ensemble’s concert featured many variations of jazz music including Latin, swing, rock-fusion and ballad-style compositions. He said he tries to pick music that will be enjoyable to play and listen to but will also be a challenge to the performers.
Kyle Jones, trumpet player for both the jazz ensemble and Symphonic Winds, said Parr chooses music that will fit the band and feature some of the students for solos.
“I love performing jazz. Jazz is your own thing; you can make jazz your own,” Jones said. “Jazz is stating your personality through music.”
Tuesday’s concert was also the first for Symphonic Winds, Symphonic Winds Conductor Ray James said.
James said the concert featured two guest conductors, seniors Christa Webster and Dana Phelps. They both conducted their portions of the concert as part of the grade for a class. He said he had no say on the songs the two women conducted.
“The tunes that they’re conducting they worked on themselves,” James said.
The concert also featured piano soloist Barbara Ludwig, the Baker Brass ensemble and a percussion ensemble.
James said the performance consisted of a few marches, a “beautiful arrangement” of “Greensleeves” and a song the U.S. Navy band performed called “Songs of Sailor and Sea.”
“My job is to be wise as to how I choose the music, and then it’s up to me to try to motivate the students to be the best they can be,” James said.
The orchestra will be performing 3:30 p.m. Sunday in Rice Auditorium.