Our Leadership
Nichole Heglund
Nichole Heglund is RJO's Education Director and Music Director of The Reno Youth Jazz Orchestra.
Nichole Heglund, originally from Denver, Colorado, moved to Reno and began teaching music in 2003. Over the years she has taught and inspired students in jazz ensembles, bands and choirs at Swope MS, Wooster HS, Billinghurst MS and is currently teaching at Verdi ES and Veterans ES. She became the Education Director for the Reno Jazz Orchestra in 2019 where she continues to share her knowledge and passion. Nichole is the director of Sapphire Jazz Ensemble, a newly formed all female big band and is a saxophonist, guest conductor, active clinician and adjudicator in Northern Nevada and California. She received a Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Northern Colorado where she met her husband Andrew Heglund. Together they have two sons Isaiah and Mathew. She also received a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Nevada, Reno.
The Reno Youth Jazz Orchestra (RYJO) was established in 2006, co-founded by Vernon Scarbrough and Karen Scarbrough. Our mission is to assemble, by audition, the top middle and high school Jazz talent in the Reno-Sparks-Carson-Tahoe communities in order to provide opportunities for the performance, preservation, appreciation, and study of jazz music. Vernon is currently the Orchestra's Music Director, and Karen is Director of Programs and Development.
Piloted in the Spring of 2022, the lessons program is an RJO outreach program for low-income schools with band programs in Northern Nevada. The purpose is to offer lessons and small-group instruction for band students who are not able to afford lessons. Many of these schools have highly motivated students who would like to improve but do not have access to small group or individual instruction. The RJO hires instructors from the community who are music educators as well as music education majors at the university. 
Each semester the RJO works with a dozen schools in the Northern Nevada area and provides jazz mentors to work with their jazz ensembles at no cost. Each school is assigned 2 mentors that visit a total of 6-8 times. In return, the ensembles are asked to perform at our Jazz in the Schools event and the Reno Jazz Festival. The director submits a pre-recording and a post-recording to show the ensemble’s growth.
The RJO provides a Saturday workshop for students in Northern Nevada who would like to work on improvisation, jazz theory, ear training, and small group performance. Currently taught by Dylan Coleman-Tunstall and guest instructors, this 9-week program helps students improve playing by ear in a small group setting. We offer 2 sections: beginning and advanced. Each session is limited to 10 students. The culminating project is 2 performances in which the students perform on a concert opening for the RJO.
For over two decades, the RJO and the Department of Music at the University of Nevada, Reno, have hosted the annual Jazz in the Schools. This one-day event is an opportunity for jazz ensembles from middle and high schools in Northern Nevada to perform for ensemble experience and focused feedback from nationally recognized clinicians. This event is provided at no charge to schools, participants, or attendees. The mission is to bring students together to perform for one another and work with RJO musicians in a clinical setting.
