The Portsmouth Abbey Jazz Band and Enharmonix, the vocal jazz ensemble, headed up to Boston on Saturday, February 10, 2018, to compete in Berklee College of Music's 50th annual Berklee High School Jazz Festival.
Held annually at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts, Berklee's festival is the largest of its kind in the United States, free, and open the public. Big bands, combos, and vocal jazz ensembles perform and compete throughout the day. All ensembles are adjudicated by a panel of Berklee's top faculty and receive a written critique of their performance. Top-ranked ensembles are awarded partial scholarships to Berklee's five-week Summer Performance Program, and individual students are invited to audition for tuition scholarships towards the full-time program or the Summer Performance Program.
This year's festival featured approximately 225 ensembles, 59 adjudicators, several clinicians, and more than 3,000 student musicians, making it, once again, the country's largest high school jazz festival. The day's events also included performances by Berklee faculty, tours of Berklee's campus, and open jam sessions.
The Portsmouth Abbey School jazz band received excellent feedback from the panel of Berklee College of Music's adjudicators, who awarded Third-form student Jamie Shipman the ensemble solo award.
The Portsmouth Abbey School jazz ensemble Enharmonix, who have placed in four of the previous five years, took home the second-place spot for the second consecutive year! The vocal group's set consisted of: "My Favorite Things" (bop chart version); "The Luckiest" (Ben Folds), featuring solos by Rory O'Neill '19 and Lauryn Harper '18; and "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" (Stevie Wonder/John Legend/Tori Kelly), with soloist Jessica Yang '18.
At the end of the night at the awards ceremony, Sixth-form student Jessica Yang was awarded the Superior Musicianship award, given by the judges to a musician whom they feel is at the top of all of the ensembles. In years past, two Portsmouth Abbey student musicians have been fortunate to win Outstanding Musicianship awards -- Sophia Diodati '15 and Rosie Randolph '16 -- but this is the first Superior Musicianship award for an Abbey student.
PORTSMOUTH ABBEY SCHOOL DIRECTOR OF MUSIC JEFF KERR AND JESSICA YANG '18 WITH BERKLEE AWARDS
"We are all so proud of our student musicians as they are competing against schools from around the country, many of whom either have jazz classes built into their curriculum or are performing arts high schools," concluded Director of Music Jeff Kerr. "In addition to the second place recognition, two of our students were awarded partial scholarships to the summer programs at the Berklee College of Music."
Well done, Portsmouth Abbey student musicians, and many thanks to faculty advisors Director of Music Jeff Kerr and music teacher Joe Bentley for their inspiration and guidance!
Check out the Portsmouth Abbey Enharmonix performance on Vimeo