Owen Maier ‘20
Photo courtesy of Ryan Dankanich
The high school jazz festival at Boston’s Berklee College of music has been a staple for Episcopal jazz bands for a decade. Now, however, it appears to be coming to an end. After over fifty years, the 2020 event has been suspended due to Berklee wanting to reallocate funds away from the festival and towards financial aid for students.
The festival was targeted towards the improvement of jazz musicians across the country as well as Puerto Rico, with professors at Berklee judging high school jazz groups’ performances. The 2019 festival, which attracted four thousand students from over 150 high schools, gave over $175,000 in scholarships to students attending a summer jazz program. In an article in BerkleeNow, Darla S. Hanley, the executive producer of the festival, says, “It was a one-of-a-kind event that celebrated music education, and it will be greatly missed.”
This opportunity was also taken advantage of by Episcopal’s jazz band students, headed by Ryan Dankanich, MS/US Band teacher. The festival was something that Dankanich himself had done in high school, so he knew upon coming to Episcopal that it would be a good tradition to continue. “I knew how fun it was. It was just such an awesome experience.” As one student left jazz band this year after learning they wouldn’t be attending Berklee that year, Dankanich is confident that this feeling towards the event is shared by the students.
Glay Yang ‘20, a saxophonist, says, “it was really cool to be in an environment where everyone has a mutual interest in jazz.” This sentiment was echoed by Arya Venugopalan ‘21, who used to play the clarinet in the jazz band. Venugopalan comments on the “high competition” and how it was “just awesome to hear these amazing jazz groups that are our age.” Both students also noted how the location of Boston added to the excellence of the event.
While the students will miss the festival, band directors from New England were talking about replacing it with something new. Local band instructors from Philadelphia and New Jersey worked on the creation of the National Jazz Festival, which is to be held on Presidents’ Day weekend this year in the Philadelphia Convention Center. However, even with new events springing up, Dankanich is optimistic that the Berklee festival will continue in the future. Dankanich comments, “It’s just one of those things that you almost can’t imagine the world without the Berklee Jazz Festival.” He anticipates a push from jazz enthusiasts everywhere to make sure the tradition carries on. Until then, however, there seems to be no shortage of enthusiasm for the creation of a festival like it.