Envision Jazz festival
On the morning of Friday, February 8th, an earnest group of talented students represented our school in this year's Envision Jazz Festival. While most other students in the school were going to their second class of the day, more than twenty intermediate and senior jazz band members headed to the Bell Performing arts center.
These students' devotion to the band was so great that they agreed to give up going to their classes for the rest of the day in order to contribute the festival and listen to other schools perform. A total of over 2,500 student musicians participated.
The band performed 'Time After Time' by Sammy Cahn and Julie Stayne, 'We've Only Just Began' by The Carpenters, and 'The Dream Tree' by Sammy Nestor. Steven Kim, Victoria Yu, Rebecca Lee, and Justin Kim all had the opportunity to played solos.
While in previous years our intermediate band had placed first, this year it ended up in second place; still quite an accomplishment given the many bands participating. The Semiahmoo Secondary's intermediate jazz band was lucky enough to snag the number one spot … this time.
The senior jazz band later performed 'Take Care' by Jay Chattaway, 'No Shuffle Shuffle' by Dominic Spera, and 'Los Matadores' by Carl Strommen. Soloists were Brian Lee, Kevin Yoo, Eric Sung Ho Cho, and Fred Cholowski.
Our senior jazz band returned to the school, proudly boasting their first place win. They were then able to repeat their performance at that night’s concert for external audience to admire.
Night programs throughout the three days of the festival were filled with professional jazz brought by Jesse Cahill's Nightcrawlers with the Big Band sound, JUMP!, and Brad Turner and The A Band.
This year’s festival was a large success that brought victory and pride to our school. Everyone interested should consid