December 2nd and 3rd, 2023 Roosevelt Jazz presented Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Jazz Nutcracker, a fanciful and swingin’ take on the Tchaikovsky suite. This special Seattle holiday tradition returned for its 24th year to the Roosevelt High School Performing Arts Theatre and brought the house down! We are grateful to our outstanding musicians, our fabulous director, our tireless volunteer boosters, and our generous and enthusiastic audience! We were thrilled to host nearly 1000 attendees over two performances and are already looking forward to 2024. Please check back fall 2024 for tickets!
Earshot Battle of the Bands a Smashing Success!
On Nov. 4th, the Roosevelt Jazz Band and the Garfield Jazz Band faced off in front of a sold-out crowd in the Roosevelt High School theatre for rousing Battle of the Bands hosted by Earshot Jazz. For both bands it was their first concert of the school year, and everyone brought their A game. The stage was set for both bands together, separated by dueling grand pianos. Garfield wowed with tunes including My Buddy and Days of Wine & Roses, while Roosevelt impressed with tunes including Basically Blues and Stompy Jones. The highlights, though, were the tunes that featured both bands at their finest, including Cotton Tail and Watermelon Man. We are so grateful to Earshot Jazz for the opportunity to participate in this event, and to the Roosevelt Jazz Boosters and Garfield Jazz Boosters who helped make it happen. What an amazing way to kick off the year! Your next chance to catch Roosevelt Jazz is at Jazz Nutcracker Dec. 2nd and 3rd.
Jazz Nutcracker is coming!
Roosevelt Jazz is proud to present Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Jazz Nutcracker, a fanciful and swingin’ take on the Tchaikovsky suite. This special Seattle holiday tradition is returning for its 24th year to the Roosevelt High School Performing Arts Theatre. Join us for a festive event for the whole family. Tickets are available now! https://www.rooseveltjazz.org/events/jazz-nutcracker/
2023-24 Roosevelt Jazz ensemble placements are out!
Dear Roosevelt Jazz Fam,
Audition results for the 2023-2024 school year are out! All of the directors, myself included, are so impressed by the growth, hard work, and high levels of preparation we’ve seen from every single student who played for us. My heart is overflowing. I’m so dang proud of each of you. It takes so much courage to audition and you all did SO well. The vibe in each audition room was so supportive and positive. You are an incredible group of students and I hope that regardless of your placement, YOU are proud of your hard work, too. This is your loving reminder that your band placement does NOT determine your worth as a musician, nor does it determine your worth as a person. The overall level of musicianship at Roosevelt is so high, and placement into ANY of our groups is an achievement. Your directors have spent meticulous care in curating these rosters and ensuring that each of you is in the ensemble that is the best possible fit.
I’d also like to announce the reinstatement of Jazz Band 4! 🥳The addition of this group is to the benefit of EVERYONE in our program! Because of this implementation, students in every ensemble will get more playing time and more opportunities for individualized instruction: both are recipes for a faster pace of musical growth and an all around more fun experience! This ensemble will meet at the same time as JB3, in a different room, and will be taught by the one and only Deb Schaaf! Deb is an incredible educator and we are SO fortunate she agreed to be on our team. All four of us are stoked for Jazz Band 4 and know that the students are the real winners of this addition.
Now that the 2023-2024 ensembles are placed, I have three action items for our jazz students:
- If you are a Jazz Band 1 member for this school year, and this placement will affect your ability to stay enrolled in a second music ensemble (such as percussion or Wind Ensemble), please reply to this email ASAP to let us know. This may result in some shuffling of personnel in our other ensembles.
- If you are in Vocal Jazz, JB2, JB3, or JB4, and are NOT currently enrolled in a curricular pd 1-6 music ensemble, please send the directors email so we can help solve that for you. I know that a couple of incoming freshmen have touched base with me about this already – go ahead and reply to this email anyways to confirm that I have you on my list.
- Director (Jazz Band 1) Hannah Mowry
- Director (Vocal Jazz) Aimee Mell
- Director (Jazz Band 2 and 3) Michael Van Bebber
- Director (Jazz Band 4) Deb Schaaf
- If you are a pianist in Vocal Jazz, JB2, JB3, or JB4, and would prefer to enroll in CHOIR rather than percussion ensemble to be an accompanist, go ahead and reply to this email as well! If you are a guitarist and would rather SING in choir than play in percussion ensemble, that applies as well! We will get you placed in the right class.
Stay tuned this summer for communication about our calendar for next school year and our events upcoming this fall! Students and their parents should be notified by email of their 2023-2024 placements. If that is not the case, please email: secretary@rooseveltjazz.org.
From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for all the work that you’ve poured into your musical journey thus far, and I cannot WAIT to see you all in the fall! 💚
Warmly,
Ms. Mowry
All ensemble lists are alphabetical order by section.
Jazz Band 1
Alto
Henry Kelly
Sky Van Scoyoc
Tenor
Taiyo Fuwa
Anna Sayrs
Bari
Kiera Stanford
Trumpet
Aaron Avery
Justin Davies
Simon Harrington
Chloe Mai
Zach Starke
Trombone
Max Baker
Charlie Herzog
Theo Long
Alex Phelps
Piano
Josh Gargett
Atyan Sternberg
Guitar
Annabelle Bauchhuber
Lyla Dalnekoff
Bass
Annie Faul
Drums
Alexander Polyakovsky
Luc Randell
Vocal Jazz
Singers
Giana Acosta
Sydney Bannister
Nicholas Christopher
Evan Dong
Gael Durham
Ellie Gilbertson
Jack Hawley
Carly Holmstrom
Lorelai Kaplan
Alma Liermann
Kate Maschoff
Zachary Monsey
Margot Morris
Alana Purcell
Jules Williams
Julia Weber
Flaminia Zito
Piano
Josh Gargett
Guitar
Henry Burke
Bass
Sienna Winquist
Drums
Momoko Heaton
Jazz Band 2
Alto
Griffin Keen
Katie Torrie
Tenor
Chloe Geer
Finley McIntosh
Bari
Mateo Miozza
Trumpet
Quinn Burwell
Gael Durham
Christian Koll
Eva Lacey
Sam Lerer
Trombone
Will Bailey
Sammy Motto
Henry Vigil
Oscar Zimmerman
Piano
Nat Holland
Max Scwaan
Guitar
Sienna Winquist
Bass
Mae Bodley
Drums
Freddie Abraham-Walker
Hugo Dunn
Jazz Band 3
Alto
Spencer Chang
Rithik Sundaram
Tenor
Charlotte Bell-Bronzan
Elizabeth Speert
Bari
Luca Chakravarti
Trumpet
Quinn Bruce
Andrew Chung
Ivan Levy
Devon Osborne
Trombone
Rowan Perantatos
Simon Thorton
Theo Van Scoyoc
Ethan Ward
Piano
Quincy Kelly
Guitar
Ellie Gilbertson
Bass
Brigid Bennett
Margot Cox
Drums
Reuben Greenspun
Jazz Band 4
Alto
Nayeli Pages
Kai Seshadri
Trumpet
Adam Bertelson
Josie Blankenly
Ella Nakagawa
Trombone
Nora Gupta
Finley Ross
Piano
Kate Aliverti
Guitar
Mateo King-Biggers
Bass
Leo Danlekoff
Drums
Cambell Smiley
Roosevelt Jazz in the Big Apple!
Our musicians are off and running in an amazing adventure in New York City, learning about the Jazz culture and history in Harlem, catching a few LIVE jazz shows, and tuning up and staying in top performing condition for the coming Essentially Ellington Festival this week and weekend.
Stay tuned for more, and tune in to watch LIVE at 7 am PDT (10 am EDT) on Saturday, May 13! (Other festival performance sessions also available to stream)
https://www.jazzlive.com/essentially-ellington-23
A HUGE and HEARTY Thank You!! to all the supporters of the Go Fund Me, concert-goers at Hot Java, Cool Jazz, Jazz Nutcracker, bake sales, and donors. Your support of this program and of our young musicians in the schools is vital to keeping the learning of this art form alive, and we couldn’t have had these amazing opportunities without you.
Day 1: flight to NYC, dinner at Chelsea Market, Village Vanguard Orchestra
Day 2: Jazz walking tour in Harlem, National Jazz History Museum, soul food, sectionals and practice, Times Square
Day 3: rehearsal at The New School, sightseeing, show at Birdland
more to come!