Litchfield Jazz Camp is set to open its 25th anniversary season at the Fredrick Gunn School in Washington CT on July 18. This year’s camp runs for two weeks, through July 30, followed by the Litchfield Jazz Festival live-streamed from Telefunken Soundstage.
Founded in 1997, Litchfield Jazz Camp is renowned for developing some of the outstanding talents in today’s world of jazz. These include vocalist Veronica Swift and Nicole Zuraitis, bassists Dezron Douglas, Luques Curtis, and Daryl Johns, drummers Richie Barshay and Jimmy Macbride, saxophonists Albert Rivera, Noah Preminger, and Lakecia Benjamin, and pianists Emmet Cohen and Carmen Staaf, to name a few. This year’s program is limited to 60 students and two weeks in place of its usual month-long run with up to 125 students per week, in an abundance of caution as we begin to emerge from the Covid pandemic.
Campers will enjoy learning improvisation, ensemble playing, jazz history, composition, performance and more in small groups, or combos, and focus on their particular instruments in master classes and jam sessions. The highlight of most evenings is a concert by camp faculty members. They include bassist and 20-year veteran of the McCoy Tyner Trio, Avery Sharpe, Jazz Journalists Association award-winning drummer Matt Wilson, guitarist Paul Bollenback, pianist Liya Grigoryan, trombonist Joe Beaty, trumpeter, Dave Ballou, vocalist and finalist for the popular television show The Voice, Melinda Rodriquez, saxophonists Albert Rivera, Andrew Hadro, and saxophonist, composer, and educator Don Braden, the camp’s Music Director. The working student combos will take the stage each Friday for brief sets treating the audience to the impressive results of their hard work and evolving love of jazz, performance and the magic of ensemble playing and improvisation. The faculty performances and weekly student concerts will all be live streamed from the mainstage of the brand new, state of the art Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center.
Performance schedules will be posted at www.litchfieldjazzcamp.org where faculty bios can also be accessed. All live streams of student and professional concerts, as well as the Litchfield Jazz Festiva, are offered free of charge thanks to generous individual donations and foundation and government grants. Check in at www.litchfieldjazzfest.org for viewing links.