The Jazz Explorers, along with the Jazz Band, Studio Jazz Band, Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Rhythm Section Class and Directed Studies in Jazz improvisation class, will play at this weekend’s Jazz Marathon.
The concerts will be held in Rugby Auditorium Saturday and Sunday and will consist of 12 student-run bands.

The first six bands will perform Saturday night at 7 p.m. and the remaining six will play at 4 p.m. on Sunday.

“There is no emphasis on a particular instrument,” Director of Jazz Studies Shawn Costantino said. “Instead, the focus is on the individuality of each student as a member of a combo.”

This concert will not only feature standard jazz and rock tunes, but also students’ original compositions.

Each band is composed of four to eight students and each will play three to four songs.

“This music will be recorded, and if any super amazing performances occur, they will be considered for submission to Down Beat magazine next winter,” Costantino said.

After the December concert, some songs played were submitted to Down Beat magazine.
“This concert’s purpose is to allow students the freedom of creative expression through the medium of small combo jazz,” Costantino said.

Participants in the annual Upper School Dance Concert are continuing the tradition of withholding the show’s theme until opening night. The show will take place March 2, 3 and 4 in Rugby and is choreographed by the Advanced Dance II: Performance and Production class.

Dance teacher Cynthia Winter directs the show. The company is made up of seven juniors and seven seniors as well as several sophomores from the Art of Dance I and II classes. 

Dancers cannot give any information about the show away, but dancer Izzy Shill ’08 said that the show “is going well. We’re pretty far along.”

 With four weeks until the concert, the dancers rehearse for at least an hour three days a week in addition to seven-hour rehearsals on Saturday and Sunday.

A combination of dancers and actors are in the Advanced Dance II class. Dancer Matthew Krumpe ’08 explained the show has a certain theatrical and dramatic element. 

“It will definitely get people thinking,” he said. “It has a point of view.  It’s going to be an interesting show: both overwhelming and touching.” 

Showcasing the music of Beethoven and Ralph Vaughan Williams, a 20th century English composer, the Major Works Concert will feature performances by the Symphony Orchestra and choral groups. The concert will have two evening performances in St. Michael’s and All Angel’s Church to accommodate large audiences March 8 and 9.

More than 150 students will perform, meaning the performance “has the potential to be a fracas and a free-for-all or something amazing and beautiful,” said Orchestra Conductor Dr. Paul Ludden. “I don’t think there’s another event that has that many students performing and showing their talent all at once.”

The evening will begin with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1.

The orchestra and a chombined choir of Chamber Singers, Bel Canto and Wolverine Chorus will then perform together on Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, featuring a piano solo by Michelle Kim ’07.

The other major combination piece of the concert is Williams’ “In Windsor Forest,” an opera adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives Of Windsor.”

“It’s really unbelievably beautiful and gorgeous,” said Rodger Guerrero, director of the choral music program. “It’s about one man’s view of his wife, and yet it’s quite funny.”