Thursday, August 21, 2008

HERITAGE SCHOOL OF MUSIC HOLDS AUDITIONS FOR FALL SEMESTER

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation, Inc., will hold auditions for its Don Jamison Heritage School of Music – a free after-school program – in the first week of September.

The auditions will be held:

  • Thursday, Sept. 4, at 3:30 p.m., at Lusher CharterHigh School (5624 Freret St.)
  • Saturday, Sept. 6, at 10 a.m., in the CookFineArtsCenter at DillardUniversity (2601 Gentilly Blvd.)

Classes will continue at the Lusher campus on Thursday afternoons through December 4. Classes will continue at the Dillard campus on Saturday mornings through November 22.

The auditions are open to music students ages 11 to 18 from the greater New Orleans area. Instruction will be in: brass, woodwinds, piano, bass, drums and voice.

The school accepts beginners to advanced students. Beginners and intermediate-level students are being directed to the Lusher campus; the Dillard campus will cater to more advanced students, who will receive instruction in composing and arranging, computer programs for music notation and music business.

Beginners should have completed at least some instruction on their instruments. They should be able to play a major and minor scale, identify notes on a staff and play at least one song. Students should own their own instruments and should bring them to the auditions.

More advanced students auditioning for the Dillard campus should be prepared to:

  • Perform a song (preferably a jazz standard) that demonstrates their full range of ability
  • Demonstrate an ability to improvise over a blues form in the keys of F and B flat
  • Play chromatic scales (F major and B flat major) over the entire length of their instrument.
  • Sight-read an unfamiliar jazz composition
  • For pianists and bassists, demonstrate a fundamental ability to read chord changes
  • For drummers, demonstrate an ability to play “straight-ahead jazz time” (swing and shuffle beats) at different tempos.
The Don Jamison Heritage School of Music is a free after-school program funded by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation.

No comments:

Blog Archive