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Berklee College of Music hosts its High School Jazz Festival at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Berklee’s annual event is the largest of its kind in the United States, and open the public.

About The Festival
Big bands, combos, and vocal jazz ensembles will perform and compete throughout the day. All ensembles are adjudicated by a panel of Berklee’s top faculty and will receive a written critique of their performance. Top-ranked ensembles will be 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 our Five Week Summer Performance Program.

The day’s events will also include performances by Berklee faculty, tours of Berklee’s campus, open jam sessions, and much more.

Ensembles can perform in competing categories determined by school size, or choose to participate in a non-competing category. All participating ensembles are adjudicated by a panel of Berklee’s top faculty and receive a written critique of their performance.

Festival History
Standing applauding and watching (from left to right) are Berklee administrators: Phil Wilson (trombone), John LaPorta (woodwinds and head of the Instrumental Performance), Bob Share (Head Administrator), Joe Viola (chair of the Woodwind Dept.), and at the podium Dr. Richard Bobbitt (Dean).

In spring of 1969, former Berklee president Lee Eliot Berk founded the first annual high school jazz festival known as the New England High School Stage Band Festival. A Berklee planning team worked with the Massachusetts Association of Jazz Educators (NAJE) organized by Berk and John LaPorta to produce the annual festival. The first festival attracted 21 bands from New England and New York. Rush-Henrietta Central High School Band, directed by Thomas Ghidiu, was the winning ensemble.

Over the festival’s years of greatest growth, from 1971 to 1992, Norman Silver, former Berklee Director of Telecommunications, served as festival director. During that time, literally thousands of talented high school students have participated in the festival, benefiting from the performance evaluations, clinics and workshops, teaching demonstrations, and prize and scholarship award opportunities. In recent years, the festival has grown attracting close to 200 ensembles including small jazz and vocal ensembles. The 2011 festival alone has more than 200 ensembles and over 3,000 student musicians participating, making it the country’s largest high school jazz festival. Schools participating in the founding festival in 1969

Connecticut Bridgeport High School

Maine Falmouth High School Winthrop High School

First festival's program

Massachusetts Central High School, Weymouth Danvers High School Dracut High School Grafton High School Holbrook High School Needham High School Peabody High School Tewksbury Memorial High School Waltham High School Wellesley High School Westborough High School Westwood High School Xaverian Brothers Stage Band, Westwood

New Hampshire Pinkerton Academy, Derry

New York Chenango Valley High School Rush-Henrietta Central High School

Rhode Island Barrington High School Cranston High School