University of Idaho’s 54th Annual Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival will be a worldwide virtual event in 2021.
The festival honors the music, dance and history of jazz and is one of the largest and oldest educational jazz events in the world. This festival features a variety of instruments from the saxophone, trombone and trumpet to guitar, piano based drums and the f lute.
The event will still feature elementary, junior high, high school and college students’ performances. There will be workshops and concerts, featuring world-class artists.
Around 5,000 students participate in the Jazz Festival and between 450 and 600 students from UI and Washington State University volunteer to help at the event.
Those performing during the festival will be announced this fall. Concerts will be aired virtually to local and international audiences.
Jazz Festival Registration for the festival starts Sept. 8. through Friday, Dec. 18. Registration prices are available on the UI News Releases site.Registration for festival events will be open to the public early 2021.
When the Jazz Fest team and campus partners came together to discuss the 2021 festival, they knew they could not do what they had done in the past for the safety of those on campus.
“We knew we couldn’t hold a traditional festival because a lot of (music educators) wouldn’t be able to travel whether it was a travel restriction from Canada or within the district or a financial crunch taking place,” Josh Skinner, the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival manager, said.
Any ensemble worldwide, from France to Brazil, could register to be in the performance and participate when they could not do so as easily before.
Before the pandemic, the students would come on campus and go into an educational workshop, take notes and have live interactions with instructors. These workshops will now be live in front of the students online and the sessions will be recorded as well.
Multiple workshops happen at once and those registered for the festival can watch the session(s) they were unable to attend.
“One of the other components is the concerts,” Skinner said. “It’s quite incredible during the regular Jazz Festival just that we have that ability to bring in the top tier talent in the jazz world into Moscow, Idaho and create an incredible cultural experience.”
The artists have not been fully chosen for 2021 because contracts are still being worked out, but more information will be released.
One of the performers will be doing a live concert from their living room in New York City. The chat features from live streaming can be used to interact with performers in real time to answer any questions the audience may have.
“The last part I’m really excited about is something that we’ve never done,” Skinner said. “We have years of archival footage from the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and we’re going to be dipping into those archives and finding some of those special moments.”
The 2021 festival will take place Feb. 25-27, and will accommodate people from different time zones. “Like with some of the other music events I dealt with this summer, people are hungry for an opportunity, for a great event from all over the world and so if they want to participate, they will definitely participate,” Skinner said.
In 2022, the festival will resume its traditional format if the pandemic allows. The dates for the 2022 festival are Feb. 24-26.
Kim Stager can be reached at arg-life@uidaho.edu or on Twitter @journalismgoals.