Northwest Catholic competes at major jazz festival

Boston, MA – The largest high school jazz competition in the U.S. – Berklee College of Music’s 46th High School Jazz Festival – will host more than 200 bands and vocal ensembles featuring 3,000 students from 13 states competing for $175,000 in scholarships to Berklee’s Five-Week Summer Performance Program. Participants will also enjoy clinics and concerts by Snarky Puppy, whose funk-influenced r&b chops earned them the 2014 Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance, and by Cloud Ludum Ensemble, which presents an interactive music program allowing audiences to hone their compositional techniques.

In addition to witnessing performances by the top high school jazz bands in the country, audiences will have the chance to experience top Berklee students performing in a salsa ensemble, a Tower of Power ensemble, a P-Funk ensemble, and other ensembles in addition to a performance by the college’s a cappella group, Pitch Slapped.

Students will also be honored for outstanding achievements in jazz composition. Matt Wong is this year’s winner of the annual Herb Pomeroy Jazz Composition/Arranging Contest and will hear his composition “Prima Luce” performed by the Berklee Rainbow Band, Berklee’s longest-running ensemble and one of the world’s oldest collegiate big bands. Wong, a San Francisco School of the Arts student, will receive a full scholarship to the Berklee Five-Week Summer Performance Program.