News VS Jazz Band earns 4th place in close contest at Waverly

Thank you to all of the band parents, band alumni, and community members that came to Waverly to cheer on our jazz band students. The jazz band has had a terrific season. 

They started out the season by achieving their fourth Division I rating in a row for jazz band at the IHSMA State Jazz Festival. They then placed 3rd at UNITallcorn Jazz Festival. Claire Andreesen was recognized at the festival as outstanding soloist.  It was the best overall finish for our jazz band at Tallcorn.  The jazz band then continued to Coe College Jazz Summit where they performed well and were awarded "outstanding performance".  

This past Saturday, we went to Waverly for the NEIBA Jazz Festival. The jazz band performed extremely well and placed 4th out of 18 jazz bands. Congratulations to Claire Andreesen and Nick Gardner for being recognized as 2 of the 5 outstanding soloists of the entire 19 band festival.

The jazz band was recognized by the state Iowa Jazz Championships Board of Directors as an official "wildcard" jazz band as the jazz band defeated jazz championship qualifying bands Sioux City Heelan (1st place in the NWIBA District) and Centerville (2nd place in the SCIBA district) at Tallcorn. Unfortunately, after placing 4th at the NEIBA Festival, our jazz band is mathematically out for this year's Iowa Jazz Championships. Our final competition will be this Saturday, March 10 at CharlesCity.

I want to thank all of the jazz band parents and students for a terrific season.....especially our jazz band seniors – Jared Gosse, Logan Halstead and Matt Walston.  We have accomplished great things together and we made school history the last couple of years due to their leadership and hard work.  While things didn't work out this year, I am very proud of them. We had a very strong season.

The challenge continues......and the goals remain the same for next year: Get better with every rehearsal and performance and hopefully put the pieces of the puzzle together.  

Congratulations also goes  to Mrs. Jodi Bierschenk and the MS jazz band for an excellent rating at NEIBA. Congratulations also to her two students that were recognized as outstanding middle school jazz band soloists for the day. 

Another congratulations goes to Nick Gardner for being accepted to the 2012 Iowa All-State Jazz Band.  Nick has been selected as the TOP tenor saxophone player in class 3A for the state of Iowafor jazz band. Only 2 tenor saxophones are selected for this honor in class 3A. He will be recognized in front of all of the participating jazz bands and the board of directors of the Jazz Educators of Iowa at the 2012 Iowa Jazz Championships in Des Moines.  He will then perform with the other selected members of the Iowa All-State Jazz Band at the 2012 Iowa Bandmasters Association Convention at the Des Moines Downtown Marriott Hotel in May. Nick is the first Vinton-Shellsburg Band student in school history that has been selected for this honor.  Congratulations!

As always, thank you for your continued support of the bands here at Vinton-Shellsburg.

-Karl Smith, VSHS BAND

Vinton-Shellsburg NEIBA Jazz Band performance 2012

Song 1

http://youtu.be/VBxRZbFDOaQ

Song 2

http://youtu.be/0TVnIcWNBx0

Song 3

http://youtu.be/pUS3ceLf8lQ

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