Wheeling High's champion jazz band has a busy year ahead
Excitement is running high around the band room at Wheeling High School.
On the heels of being named grand champion at last year's Jazz in the Meadows festival, Wheeling's Jazz Band 1 now finds itself playing before professional musicians, and jetting off to jazz contests in Europe.
It all starts at 8 p.m. Tuesday night, when Wheeling's jazz band opens for Rob Parton's Jazztech big band at Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights.
Then they will play for their local fans at the school's Pops Concert on Saturday at Wheeling High School, where they will play jazz standards by Allen Baylock and Duke Ellington, as well as "Hey Jude," by the Beatles.
In December, the jazz band was one of only four in the country selected to play at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago, which brings together nearly 15,000 students, educators, professional musicians and composers.
All of these high profile gigs build toward the jazz band's summer tour, which takes them to perform at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Tuscany, Italy, and to the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
"It is very good to be part of the Wheeling High School band program right now," says Brian Logan, band director.
However, he adds that their recent string of successes has not come accidentally.
"This group works," he says. "We have a unique blend of extremely talented, hardworking kids, with supportive parents, administrators and excellent private teachers."
They work so much that over the summer, they logged more than 50 hours of rehearsal, Logan adds, and their performance schedule is packed.
Their work ethic and love of playing music is contagious, apparently. This fall, the school's marching band was named grand champion at the St. Rita Mustang Stampede in Chicago, emerging from 20 high school band programs.
Still, Logan strives to promote the school's comprehensive band program, and he points to its wind symphony being selected last year to the Superstate Concert Band Festival, and two years ago to the Bands of America National Concert Band Festival.
In the meantime, parents in the Wheeling Instrumental League are scrambling to mount fundraising efforts to send the jazz band to Europe. Already, they have received a $5,000 donation from AMVETS Post 66 in Wheeling, and they hope to draw more community support.
Interested supporters can make donations out to the Wheeling Instrumental League, care of Brian Logan, and mail them to Wheeling High School, 900 S. Elmhurst Road in Wheeling.