It has involved a lot of before and after school hours to prepare for such an opportunity, but Stratford High’s jazz band students are putting in the effort to make sure their presence is known when they perform at the South Carolina Music Educators Association conference in February.
Each year, SCMEA hosts a professional development conference in Columbia. School music groups all across the state regularly apply to be a part of the conference’s musical performances, making these selections highly-coveted opportunities for students to perform in front of music directors from all around the state.
Being accepted to perform at this annual event involves submitting tape recordings of prior band performances. Stratford High's jazz band applied about two years ago and then tried again this past year – and was successful this go around. This year’s conference will be held at the USC Alumni Center in Columbia.
Stratford High’s jazz band has grown to consist of two groups: the “mega” jazz band, which includes all jazz band students (about 70 students), and the Stratford Jazz Orchestra, the school’s top-performing jazz ensemble that is made up of approximately 20 students who will play the majority of the music at SCMEA.
Band Director Greg Priest said the band found out last fall that they were accepted to perform at the conference. While very excited, jazz band typically does not rehearse as much in the fall because of marching band, so the program worked hard to create a whole new schedule for jazz band students that included before and after school get-togethers.
It is a lot of work, but many of the students have a lot of prior experience playing jazz music, which Priest attributed to Westview Middle Band Director Ronnie Ward, who many of the band students performed under during their middle school band experience.
“We had some really good players in the band last year, and we have lot of students really commit to the jazz genre,” Priest said. “Mr. Ward is so heavy in jazz down at Westview Middle that he has done a good job of preparing our kids for the high school level, and has taught a lot of the key skills of how to be a good band member…He is a big, integral part of our success for sure.”
They will perform about 45 minutes of music total at the SCMEA convention, and Priest said they are playing a lot of very different pieces, including a special selection that the whole jazz band will play: a piece Ward had commissioned last year by composer Paul Murtha called “The Low Country Shuffle.”
Priest said the pieces he selected are challenging, but have not fazed his students.
“I think our kids have done a great job stepping up to the occasion,” he said. “I definitely picked some music I was unsure they would be able to play…but they have done a really great job of rising to the challenge and putting in the work.”
Stratford High also has two eleventh-grade jazz students who were among three Berkeley County School District students selected for an eight-member jazz ensemble that is also performing at the conference. Read more.
View additional photos from a recent jazz rehearsal.