APS Students to Jazz it Up with Educational “Informances”

Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz giving workshops at Highland, Valley

New World School of the Arts Jazz Quintet of Miami

February 21, 2012

Albuquerque Public Schools is among four school districts nationwide selected this year to be provided a week of “peer-to-peer” concerts and workshops by the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Performers will work with Highland High School students March 1 and students at Valley High March 2. 

Each school visit will include an assembly program featuring a musical performance for all students, followed by jazz workshops for each school’s jazz band and choir with the visiting student performers playing alongside and sharing ideas with their New Mexican counterparts. 

Combining performance with educational information, these “informances” will be presented by five music students from Miami’s New World School of the Arts, one of 11 public performing arts magnet schools around the country participating in the Institute’s National Performing Arts High School Jazz Program. They will be featured with internationally acclaimed jazz saxophonist and Grammy nominee Bobby Watson, vocal sensation Lisa Henry, and renowned jazz educator Dr. J.B. Dyas. 

The group’s weeklong tour, which begins in Santa Fe, concludes with a concert open to the public on March 2 at Albuquerque jazz club Jazzbah, 119 Gold Street SW, where Albuquerque residents and visitors are invited to enjoy an evening of music with Watson and Henry alongside jazz’s future “young lions.” The septet will perform standards, jazz classics, and contemporary jazz, including compositions from Watson’s and Henry’s latest CD releases. Shows begin at 8 and 10 p.m. For more information call 243-5299 or visit www.jazzbahabq.com. 

The program is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.