Admission for the concerts is $5 for adults, $2 for seniors and free for NDSU students with ID.
The NDSU Jazz Festival returns for its 42nd year Feb. 6 and 7 at the Reineke Fine Arts Center. This year, the Challey School of Music is thrilled to welcome saxophonist Monty Cole, trumpeter Tim Farrell and drummer Sammy Kestenholtz as our guest performers and adjudicators.
Organized by NDSU saxophone and jazz professor Matthew Patnode, the Jazz Festival this year features 24 regional high school jazz ensembles who will perform a short concert and receive coaching from our guest artists. Each artist will present a clinic specifically for his instrument at 2 p.m. each day. The festival culminates in a public NDSU Jazz Ensembles concert at 5:30 p.m. both days in Festival Concert Hall featuring Cole, Farrell and Kestenholtz. Vendors from Schmitt Music and Popplers Music will also be set up in the atrium.
Clinics are free and open to the public. Admission for the concerts is $5 for adults, $2 for seniors and free for NDSU students with ID. Reineke Fine Arts Center is located at 1511 12th Ave. N. on NDSU’s campus. Parking is free after 4:30 p.m. Visit the Challey School of Music’s website to learn more.
About the Guest Artists
Monty Cole has served as the Director of Jazz Studies at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, since 2002. A versatile performer, he appears throughout the country as a clinician and performing artist in both classical and jazz areas. As a saxophonist, he has toured with the Guy Lombardo Big Band and performed with several jazz artists including Frank Mantooth, Vince Dimartino, Brad Goode and many others. Recent performances include the internationally syndicated Oprah Winfrey Show with Josh Groban and in concert with Barry Manilow, Kristin Chenoweth, Il Volo and Sarah Mclachlan.
Trumpeter Tim Farrell is a Professor of Music at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. He teaches applied trumpet and horn, jazz improvisation, music education courses and directs the UNK Jazz/Rock Ensemble. Farrell also taught at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, for 12 years, where he was assistant dean, chair, the applied highbrass teacher and Director of Jazz Studies. In 2008, he won the highly coveted Alice Admire Teaching Award at Fort Lewis College.
Grammy-nominated drummer Sammy Kestenholtz – known as “Slammin’ Sammy K” – is an international educator, clinician and performer. He is an educator for the Music for All Summer Symposium (sponsored by Yamaha) Joe's Jazz Camp (Atlanta, Georgia), New Horizons Band Camp and the Dayton Jazz Labs. Sammy also does distance clinics and teaching with high school and college students internationally. His playing can be heard on MythBusters, several Disney holiday DVDs, Confessions of an Eco Terrorist, ABC, CBS, NBC and the films The Girl on The Train, The Spaces In Between: On the Road with Amy Cook and Dalai Lama Awakening.
