After making the prestigious Sweepstakes final five of the Folsom Jazz Festival for the fourth consecutive year, it was Jazz I's turn to win the Sweepstakes Award for Marin School of the Arts as the best Jazz Band of the entire festival. This is no easy accomplishment with more than 60 bands competing from all over Northern California and Nevada.
This highly competitive festival has bands and choirs categorized by division perform during the day. During the day competition, MSA Jazz Band I placed first winning the AA division. In that performance, Kshimon Stevenson, Amanda Albini, Sammie Fischer and Anthony Ferrara were awarded outstanding soloist medals.
Equally impressive was the performance of MSA Jazz Band II which earned Unanimous Superior scores and took third place. Nicole McCabe, Ray Turner and Tristan Mitchell were awarded outstanding soloist medals.
At the end of the day, the festival reviews all judges rating sheets and the jazz bands with the five highest scores over all the divisions are selected to compete in the Sweepstakes Final. Each of the five finalist groups were allowed to perform one piece. Judges who are college jazz educators and professionals rate the finalists and select the winner. In addition the Jazz Choir had an amazing performance with both Charlotte Kinberger and John Wright winning awards of Excellence for Jazz Choir.
MSA Founder and Jazz Program Director Mark Peabody says, "It is an amazing accomplishment for the MSA music program to place first out of all the top bands in Northern California. I give much of the success of this incredible accomplishment to the amazing students in the jazz program. These students thrive on the toughest challenges and never give up. It is through there hard work that they have accomplished what most students only dream about."
