From 7 to 7:45 p.m., the South Campus jazz band and middle school students from the feeder schools in the Arrowhead Consortium Band will play in the North Campus Little Theatre, followed by dessert.
After dessert, the North Campus jazz band will play. A $5 ticket for the evening covers the chili and the jazz and can be reserved through Arrowhead band director Josh Byrd at (262) 369-3612 Ext. 4842 or byrd@ahs.
k12.wi.us.
"The big change between this year and years past is really the location," Byrd said. In years past, the musicians have played all that jazz in the commons area, a less satisfying area for the event. "It'll be much more comfortable for parents and grandmas and grandpas," said Chris Slowinski, a member of B-BOP (Booster Band and Orchestra Parents) at Arrowhead.
"The sound is not very good at all in the commons; it bounces all over the place," Slowinski said. "The kids are doing such a good job that we wanted to make sure people could hear the jazz bands playing." Instead, this year, attendees will have the more comfortable seats and acoustics of the Little Theatre.
"We have our auditorium and we're going to make the best use of that as possible," Byrd said. With the change to the auditorium, organizers at first thought to drop the chili from the event, but the students didn't want to play without the chili, Sowinski said. The evening will be packed with jazz, much of which will be recognizable, from old Frank Sinatra favorites to recent Grammy winner Gordon Goodwin with the 18-piece jazz ensemble Big Phat Band, Byrd said.
"We've been able to prepare a lot of music with the North Campus jazz band," Byrd said. In past years, holding Hot Chili, Cool Jazz in January has meant not enough time for North Campus musicians -juniors and seniors - to turn around from their marching band duties and prepare for the night of jazz. Sadly, the change in date for Hot Chili, Cool Jazz means a scheduling conflict that will prevent band students from North Shore Middle School in Hartland and from Merton Intermediate School from participating.
But students from the rest of the member schools of the consortium band - Lake Country, North Lake, Richmond, Stone Bank and Swallow - will play along. "We really hope Merton and North Shore can be here next year," Slowinski said. This year's change of location and slightly smaller number of participants will mean a more intimate event, with only 400 tickets for sale rather than the 1,000 tickets of previous years, Slowinski said.
"We're looking at this as kind of a transition year, see how it works out and see the audience response," Slowinski said. Funds raised by Hot Chili, Cool Jazz go toward college scholarships for instrumental music students.
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