“Technically, there are no mistakes.”
So says junior Emily Dickinson, one of the 16 students involved in the Hillsdale College Big Band. The entire ensemble will attend the University of Michigan Jazz Festival this Saturday, Feb. 8. But don’t let her fool you –– the Hillsdale jazz program has been growing, and the pressure is on.
The festival occurs every other year, drawing jazz ensembles from the region. Hillsdale College has attended since 2006. Over the course of the day, ensembles perform, are critiqued, and watch other ensembles play. Junior Joe Banovetz attended his freshman year.
“It was fun –– and exhausting,” Banovetz said. “We spent all day running from performance to performance, watching and playing.”
Hillsdale College has sent strong ensembles to the festival in the past, but the jazz program has grown considerably in recent years. Both the quality of its musicians and the size of the program itself have improved since the last festival.
“The jazz program has been getting bigger every year,” Dickinson said. “More performances, more practices.”
Banovetz has been a member of the Hillsdale College Big Band since his freshman year.
“When I was a freshman, we became a good band,” Banovetz said. “People began to expect a lot out of us and we began performing more often.”
The growth is due to an influx of talented students, as well as administrative support for the program.
“Holleman and McCourry have brought in really good talent and great adjunct faculty,” Banovetz said, referring to Professor of Music James Holleman and Teacher of Music Chris McCourry, director of the jazz ensembles. “They have also given students access to jazz-specific lessons. For example, I take lessons from a musician from Albion College. That has helped me a lot.”
Dickinson hopes that the big band ensemble will continue to grow.
“The band has a lot of new talent –– we’re really building the ensemble,” Dickinson said. “I think that the college is realizing how much talent and dedication we have in the jazz program.”
Among the new talent is Kyle Shillingstad, one of eight freshmen in the band.
“Learning to sight read has been one of the biggest things about coming into the jazz program,” Shillingstad said. “We perform at afterglows without ever really practicing the piece beforehand. I mean, at the last afterglow, we just made up a piece on the spot.”
The relative inexperience of recent additions to the ensemble doesn’t seem to be a concern for jazz program veterans.
“I think that there are enough people returning to the program that adjusting isn’t really a problem,” Banovetz said. “I mean, there will be social adjustments –– getting to know everyone, getting comfortable playing together. But we have core musicians that have come back, and so our sound has remained pretty consistent.”
Sophomore Tricia Clarey laughed when asked what she thought signified a good performance.
“It comes together,” Clarey said. “We have fun, the director likes it, the audience likes it. And we all manage to end the song at the same time.”