Bethel Uni­ver­sity to Host “Fes­ti­val of Jazz” 

MISHAWAKA – On Feb. 18, Bethel will be host­ing the Fes­ti­val of Jazz, a mu­si­cal event run­ning from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and clos­ing with a con­cert open to the pub­lic at 7:30 p.m. The fes­ti­val will take place in the Ever­est-Rohrer Fine Arts Build­ing. There will also be jazz mu­sic in the Din­ing Com­mons from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.  

This event was cre­ated to give lo­cal high school jazz mu­si­cians the op­por­tu­nity to col­lab­o­rate and learn from some jazz pro­fes­sion­als. The stu­dents will be learn­ing from big names that in­clude Patrick Hes­sion, trum­pet; Jim Cata­lano, per­cus­sion; Jay Jehl, trom­bone; and Todd Williams, sax­o­phone. 

Two of the main groups in­volved in the ex­e­cu­tion of this event are the Bethel Uni­ver­sity Jazz En­sem­ble and Truth in Jazz, a pro­fes­sional band com­prised of mu­sic ed­u­ca­tors. Both groups are di­rected by Steve Allen. 

“The first an­nual Bethel Fes­ti­val of Jazz is an event aimed at cel­e­brat­ing and cul­ti­vat­ing the dis­tinctly Amer­i­can form of mu­sic known as jazz among high school stu­dents in Michi­ana and be­yond,” Allen said, ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease from Bethel Uni­ver­sity. “Stu­dents will lis­ten to their peers per­form and gain pro­fes­sional mu­si­cal ex­pe­ri­ence from our solid staff of per­former/​clin­i­cians. Lovers of mu­sic of all kinds will en­joy the evening con­cert, where we will hear our clin­i­cians and out­stand­ing stu­dent soloists per­form." 

The cost for at­tend­ing this event is $5 for stu­dents or se­niors and $7 for adults. Tick­ets can be pur­chased at tick­ets.bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu or by call­ing 574.807.7080. All the money goes to cover the high school stu­dents’ clin­i­cals; there will also be t-shirts avail­able for pur­chase be­fore and af­ter the con­cert.  

This is a great op­por­tu­nity to wit­ness the beauty of young mu­si­cal tal­ent, and it gives the high school par­tic­i­pants the op­por­tu­nity, not only to learn, but to ex­pe­ri­ence a small part of the Bethel com­mu­nity and pos­si­bly make con­nec­tions that would en­cour­age them to con­sider be­com­ing Bethel pi­lots.  

Cur­rently, the plan is for the Fes­ti­val of Jazz to be­come an an­nual event, and Bethel plans to con­tinue host­ing it. 

There will also be ad­di­tional jazz events this se­mes­ter fea­tur­ing mem­bers of the Bethel com­mu­nity. The Bethel Uni­ver­sity Jazz Band will per­form a con­cert on Apr. 15 with the Bethel Uni­ver­sity Wind En­sem­ble. Tick­ets for this can also be pur­chased at tick­ets.bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu.