What a crazy week it has been in the Music Department at WCC.
3 major events in less than 5 days!
On Thursday 28th April, the Secondary Jazz Band and the Secondary Jazz Choir (Octave One) performed at the annual ‘Night of Jazz’ evening held at Wantirna College. This night was an opportunity for Jazz Bands and Jazz Choirs to perform their programs before heading to the Mt Gambier ‘Generations in Jazz’ Festival which this year will be held on the 6th to 8th May.
The Jazz Band from WCC opened the evening to excellent acclaim and performed a program of 3 pieces:
‘3 to get ready’ by Bill Broughton, the set piece of Division 4 for the festival. It is a moderate swing piece in a 3/4 time signature. This Jazz Waltz feel requires students grapple with the nuances of swing, in what feels like an irregular time signature to a young band. Solos from Mason Aulia (Yr 8) on Alto Saxophone and Jonathan Hatton (Yr 11) on Trumpet were well applauded and appreciated. The band played well and certainly lifted their game in intonation and handled the feel really well.
The Second piece was a beautiful jazz ballad written by Duke Ellington. Originally intended to be an alto saxophone feature for Johnny Hodges, the WCC Jazz Band have adapted this piece to feature Jazz Band Captain, Danielle Piccin (Yr 12), on Electric Guitar. By interpreting the alto saxophone solo as played by Hodges, Danielle has created a fresh sounding guitar feature which is uncommon and will hopefully score high with adjudicator and listener alike.
The third and final piece in the Jazz Bands program was a great moderate tempo Funk piece called ‘Critical Mass’. This piece features prominently our Baritone Saxophone player, Tiff Chu (Yr 12), who did a great job and certainly led this song with excellence.
The Jazz Band are very excited about getting to Mt Gambier and having a great time playing and listening to some great music from both school age musicians and world class professionals flown in to play at this event.
The Jazz Choir from WCC performed in the middle section of the show and also performed exceptionally well. Jazz Choir performed two pieces and the audience were amazed at their blend and harmony.
Their first piece, Santorini, has a Latin vibe (although Santorini is in Greece) and the WCC students certainly bought a great feel to the piece with their clever arrangement.
The second piece, Butterfly, is a complex 6 part harmony piece (a tough gig when you only have 8 singers) and featured the Choir and Jazz Choir Captain Alexandra Rutherfurd (Yr 12) in the lead role. A beautiful piece that really showed the Jazz Choirs skill and individual talent.
Overall the night was a great success with great performances by the bands, soloists and choirs of St Andrews and Wantirna as well.
Both of our Jazz Ensembles are excited to be attending the Generations in Jazz event at the end of the coming week and we will certainly keep you updated as to our progress via the website, Facebook, Instagram and other WCC Performing Arts platforms.
Please enjoy this selection of the work by our Jazz Choir and Jazz Band from the 2016 ‘Night of Jazz’. If you would like to hear more of our performances please keep an eye on wccperformingarts.com or attend the 2017 ‘Night of Jazz’.