Core to The Vail Jazz Foundation is its educational programs.  Through Jazz Goes to School, we are able to broaden audiences with local youth and through the Vail Jazz Workshop, provide select young jazz musicians with unparalleled training with top jazz professionals.

Each year the Vail Jazz Foundation brings jazz education to every 4^th and 5^th grader in Eagle County as part of its mission to preserve jazz with a special emphasis on young musicians and young audiences. Now in its 15^th year, Jazz Goes to School teaches jazz history and concepts to over 1,100 students each year.

Under the direction of local jazz educator and musician, Tony Gulizia, along with up to 5 other instructors, students are guided through a four-session progression on the origins of jazz, its history and famous musicians, basic concepts of rhythm and styles of jazz, and an introduction to the instruments used to play jazz. Using teaching techniques that combine demonstration and hands-on participation, students are encouraged to play various instruments and to even compose their own lyrics for blues tunes.

The final session is a true jazz concert at the Vilar Performing Arts Center, where students are treated to an auditory tour of jazz history as well as hearing their own lyrics put to music.

What is Jazz?  Wonders of Sound presented the following insightful article.  Please click here to read!

VAIL JAZZ WORKSHOP

The Vail Jazz Workshop, celebrating its 18th year, is the preeminent jazz program for high school jazz musicians in the United States. Each year 12 aspiring young jazz musicians are brought to Vail for a ten day residency where they are taught and mentored by a teaching staff lead by John Clayton, noted jazz musician and educator, along with Jeff Clayton, Bill Cunliffe, Lewis Nash, Terell Stafford, and Wycliffe Gordon.

Working up to 12 hours a day without written music, the students receive professional level instruction and a one-of-a-kind experience that has launched many successful music careers.  The competition to gain a spot at each year’s Workshop is fierce and those talented (and lucky enough) to be selected are provided full or partial scholarships by the Vail Jazz Foundation.

By the end of this intense program in Vail, these young musicians are billed as the “Vail Jazz All-Stars” and perform for the opening night on Thursday for the Labor Weekend Jazz Party playing alongside their instructors.  Their CD is available by clicking here. Proceeds of CD sales fund scholarships for the 2013 Vail Jazz Workshop.

Donations to the Vail Jazz Foundation support these educational programs.