At the February 16th Board of Education meeting, the Board and guests were treated to a special performance by a group of South Huntington musicians from Walt Whitman High School, Stimson Middle School, and Birchwood Intermediate School. In recognition of Black History Month, the group performed “C Jam Blues” as an homage to the late great jazz musician Duke Ellington. An originator of big band jazz, Duke Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader who composed thousands of scores over his 50 year career, making him a major figure in the history of jazz music.

We were so impressed by the collaboration of these musicians, conducted by WWHS Band Director Matt Hoffman and Music teachers Shannon Zaykoski of Birchwood and Greg Modelewski of Stimson.

From Walt Whitman High School, we had Dylan Vincent on the trombone, Liam Hill on tenor saxophone, Andrew Fogel on piano, and Colin Murphy on drums.

From Stimson Middle School we had Lauren Dinstell on the baritone and Ella Brenner playing  alto sax.

From Birchwood, on clarinet we had Kanika Paswan and Ayden Hossain, and on trombone, we had Lucas Maltese, Lucas Rodriguez, Chris Murray, Justin Hernandez and Raul Romero.

Thank you all for a wonderful performance in honor of Black History Month!

View their performance and the full BOE meeting here.

In recognition of Black History Month, Birchwood musician Justin Hernandez introduced Duke Ellington to the audience as a major figure in the history of jazz music.

Kanika Paswan from Birchwood performed the first solo of the evening on the clarinet.

WWHS senior Dylan Vincent performing his solo on the trombone.

WWHS Band Director, Mr. Matt Hoffman, accompanying Andrew Fogel on the piano.

Thank you to our WWHS, Stimson, and Birchwood musicians for a great 'Jazz Jam' collaboration!