Registration is under way for this summer’s annual John Coltrane Jazz Workshop that the High Point Arts Council sponsors for youth as a tribute to the world-famous jazz saxophonist, who grew up in High Point.
The workshop is offered to all rising seventh- through 12th-graders with varying levels of ability in bass, percussion, guitar, keyboard, brass (trumpet, trombone), or woodwind (clarinet, flute, saxophone) instruments.
The workshop will be held July 21-25, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. each day, at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts on E. Washington Drive, a building where Coltrane attended school.
The registration fee for the workshop is $165, but scholarships are available. Students will receive a daily lunch and a John Coltrane Jazz Workshop T-shirt.
During the workshop, students will learn jazz history and jazz theory and will be taught by educators and performers who are highly regarded as jazz specialists.
The faculty for the workshop will be led by Drew Hays, a founding member and baritone saxophonist of the Piedmont Triad Jazz Orchestra. He has performed throughout North Carolina with the group, including at the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival in High Point. He also serves as one of the ensemble’s in-house arrangers.
Additionally, Hays serves as chair of the music department at Guilford College, where he teaches jazz studies, music theory, and saxophone.
Also joining the workshop team this year as assistant director is singer, saxophonist, writer, and music educator Titus Gant, the executive director of the Gant School of Music and Jazz, a nonprofit he created to help underserved students gain access to the world of music and musicianship.
On Friday evening, July 25, following the completion of the workshop, the students will play before an audience at a free jazz concert for the community. This concert will also be held at Penn-Griffin.
The deadline to register for the workshop is July 1.
