(RENO, Nev.) January 6, 2020 --- The Reno Jazz Orchestra (RJO) will host the 22nd annual Jazz in the Schools (JITS) program on Saturday, February 12, from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm. Over 300 middle and high school musicians from over a dozen school jazz bands will perform for free in the Nightingale Concert Hall at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) campus.
“This program is part of the Reno Jazz Orchestra’s community’s educational outreach efforts. The all-day event helps to prepare the school groups to compete in the Reno Jazz Festival each spring and introduces them to UNR and the UNR jazz faculty,” said Nichole Heglund, education director for the Reno Jazz Orchestra.
All the student Jazz in the School performances are free.
Over the years, Dr. Andy Heglund (UNR Music Professor/RJO drummer) has been instrumental in growing the event. This past year 17 big bands, 2 choirs, and 5 combos performed at UNR for two outstanding clinicians. This opportunity also helps the ensembles to prepare for the Reno Jazz Festival (RJF) in which they are rated. Over the years, those schools that have participated have shown a consistent improvement in their scores at the RJF.
Healing Healthcare Systems, Inc., Chase International, EL Cord Foundation, Nevada Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Tanglewood Productions, Art Works, City of Reno, Thunder Vick & Co., Montreux, and the RJO Circle of Friends and Fans support this event.
Nightingale Concert Hall
University of Nevada | Church Fine Arts
1664 N Virginia St
Reno, NV
"Annie is able to create a modern sound using crafty rhythms and beautifully layered harmony into her compositions. We hope you can make it out to see the jazz orchestra continue its eclectic set choices and feature top notch talent through its own performers and guest artists." -- Jonathan Phillips, Guest Music Director for the Reno Jazz Orchestra.
As the grand finale to the RJO's annual Jazz in the Schools, the RJO presents an afternoon concert featuring Annie Booth leading the Reno Jazz Orchestra in a performance of her original compositions.
Annie Booth is a versatile and award-winning composer and jazz pianist based in Denver, CO. She has established herself as an active force on the local and national scene as a composer and leader-performer of her many projects (the Annie Booth Trio, Sextet, and Big Band) and as a busy side-musician. Booth holds a Bachelors of Music Performance and a Masters of Music in Jazz Performance and Pedagogy from the Thompson Jazz Studies Program at the University of Colorado.
As a composer, Annie has received national recognition with awards from Chamber Music America (2021 Performance Plus Grant), ASCAP (Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers’ Award, Phoebe Jacobs Prize), Downbeat Magazine (2020 Outstanding Graduate Performance), and the Jazz Education Network (2020 Young Composers Showcase), among others. In her hometown of Denver, CO, she has been named one of the Ten Best Jazz Musicians by Westword Magazine.
Booth has released four albums as a leader - 2014's Wanderlust, a slate of original works for trio and quartet (featuring saxophonist Joshua Quinlan), Abundance: Live at Mighty Fine by the Annie Booth Sextet - another display of Booth’s compositional prowess recorded in front of a live studio audience, the Annie Booth Trio’s joyous holiday album, Festive!, and The Annie Booth Trio with Max Wellman- a collaboration between her trio and the midwest-based crooner Max Wellman. The Annie Booth Trio features the immense musicianship and camaraderie between Booth and long-time friends and collaborators, Patrick McDevitt (bass) and Alejandro Castaño (drums).
Annie Booth’s most recent compositional endeavors include Flowers of Evil and the Annie Booth Big Band. Flowers of Evil is an evenings-length song cycle for chamber-jazz dectet based on the poetry of 19th cent. French poet Charles Baudelaire in the poetry collection of the same name. Reorded over two days in May 2021, it is slated for a 2022 studio release. The Annie Booth Big Band is an 18-piece jazz orchestra that performs Booth’s original compositions and arrangements. The ensemble features a diverse cast of the best and brightest jazz musicians in Colorado and has performed at City Park Jazz (2021) and in a monthly residency at the Mercury Cafe in Denver, CO.
When Annie is not performing, traveling or composing, she adores working with the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts (CCJA), an organization of which she is an alumna and current faculty member. In 2017, in conjunction with CCJA, she created Colorado’s first ever jazz camp exclusively for young women, the SheBop Young Women in Jazz Workshop. She is fiercely passionate about empowering the next generation of young women to express themselves thorough the jazz art form and the workshop is the subject of her 2020 Masters Thesis. Booth has taught on adjunct faculties of the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Colorado and maintains an active schedule as a guest clinician, artist, and adjudicator at jazz festivals and high school and university programs across the U.S. and Canada.
