Educational Workshops

Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival

The University of Idaho Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival’s mission is to keep the magic, music and spirit of jazz alive for today’s youth and generations to come by inspiring students, teachers and artists of all ages and abilities to excel in their appreciation, understanding and performance of jazz.

The Festival consists of 1) student performance clinics; 2) Artist and Educational Workshops during the Festival and Jazz in the Schools; and 3) public main stage performances by world-class artists.

This Idaho Commission on the Arts grant sponsored the following workshops led by professional artists during the 2016 festival in Moscow:
“The Monty Alexander Trio” presented by pianist Monty Alexander, bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton
“Afro-Cuban Jazz & Beyond” presented by drummer Ignacio Berroa
“Musical Drumming” presented by drummer Ignacio Berroa
and
“Making it Real: Storytelling Through Song” presented by vocalist Dee Daniels

The Essential Question that guided our projects’ focus was:

How do musicians improve the quality of their performance?

We also asked the question, “How do we judge the quality of musical work(s) and performance(s)?”

At the conclusion of the project, students responded to questions related to the identified Standards:

Workshop attendees were asked to fill out a brief survey at the end of each workshop.

91% of respondents stated that the presenters met their expectations.
86% of respondents said that, yes, the workshop presented skills and techniques that will contribute to their performance or appreciation of music.
80% of respondents said that, yes, the workshop helped their understanding of how to evaluate the quality of musical works/performances.

Impact

I wish you could see the magic in a young musician’s eyes when he/she is invited onto stage to work with the presenting artist to demonstrate and teach a particular concept to the audience. The ability for students to personally interact with the finest musicians jazz has to offer is often a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Here are just a few of the unsolicited comments workshop attendees wrote on their surveys –
“Awesome! Love, love love!!!”
“Excellent workshop! Super helpful!”
“Love it! I wish we had more time.”
“Fabulous!”
“Great workshop!”
“This guy is a great musician, a nice guy and obviously loves music.”
“Very informative!”
“Fantastic.”
“Outstanding!!”

Reflection

The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival is first and foremost an educational festival. Year after year, we receive comments and feedback suggesting that our outstanding Artist and Educator workshops make us special and unique within the world of music education. We are grateful to the Idaho Commission on the Arts for partnering with us to inspire students to excel in their appreciation, understanding and performance of jazz.