Noblesville High School Jazz Band to open for Grammy-winning jazz artist Wynton Marsalis

By COLIN BAILLIE
WISH-TV | wishtv.com

The Noblesville High School Jazz Band will hit the stage at the Palladium in Carmel Sunday to perform alongside one of the biggest names in modern-day jazz.

The high school band was selected to open for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. The group features more than a dozen soloists, ensemble players, and arrangers in jazz music.

It was founded in 1988 and has been led since 1991 by artistic director Wynton Marsalis, a world-renowned trumpeter and nine-time Grammy Award winner. His composition titled “Blood on the Fields” was the first jazz work to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

“This is like the ’96 Bulls and Michael Jordan inviting you to come play basketball with them,” Peter Luttrul, the high school jazz band’s director, said. “And this is the kids first time really to show off what they can do and I couldn’t be happier for them or the program.”

Luttrul says when they’d be the opening act for the jazz legend, he and his students were shocked.

“They asked us to choose some of [Duke] Ellington’s music and that’s something that’s really in the kids’ bag, and Jazz of Lincoln Center didn’t even ask to hear us, they just trusted us,” Luttrul added.

Along with Ellington, the band will perform everything from new compositions to historic pieces and arrangements by Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, and other greats.

For senior band member Zach Swanson, this means the world to open up for someone he has grown up listening to.

“It really is an honor that they asked us to play for them. I’m just really looking forward to just playing with some of the best musicians,” he said.

Swanson also says he and his band members are ready to perform on the big stage. “I really think that we’re honored to be asked to do something like this,” he said.

For more information and tickets for the show, click here.

This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/education/noblesville-high-school-jazz-band-performance.