My Experience At The Standard Bank Grahamstown National Youth Jazz Festival

By Graeme Heerden, Form 3

The Standard Bank Grahamstown National Youth Jazz Festival was unbelievable. It was a life time opportunity for young jazz players to learn and to discover hidden talents that they have.
The thing that made the festival so amazing and so successful was the top jazz professors and teachers that came from all round the world to provide workshops and lessons. It was such fun to attend these workshops and to learn from them also to hear them performing live was a great honour. I had the chance to perform with a few of them, it was amazing.
On the first day everyone tried out for either the SA Schools Youth Band or the SA Youth Band. If you did not succeed in making it into either of the bands you were allocated to a smaller jazz band where everyone could have a chance to play and perform. There were about 8 smaller jazz bands of mixed ability.
A day at the jazz festival was as follows:
• You had breakfast in the morning.
• Then you had your band practice for 2 hours and if you made it into the SA band you practiced all day.
• You then could choose the workshops that you wanted to attend and they went on until about 3:30pm.
• In between all the workshops you had lunch and a 30 minute rest period.
• After all the workshops you would get ready for supper and choose which concerts you wanted to go and watch.
My favourite parts of the jazz festival were, of course, playing and learning from all the amazing jazz artists that were there. I loved going to watch all the concerts in the evening. One of the best things is all the diverse people that you meet and all the friends you make and all the good times you have together that you will never forget.