Pharez Whitted to headline DePauw School of Music Jazz Festival Saturday

Love jazz? Steve Snyder, director of jazz studies at DePauw School of Music, has lined up a full day of nothing but for DePauw Un iversity's first jazz festival on Saturday, March 12.

The festival will include performances from high school and middle school jazz ensembles across Indiana, valuable clinics, and master classes with professional jazz musicians.

Jazz trumpeter Pharez Whitted headlines the DePauw School of Music's first annual Jazz Festival, an all-day event Saturday, March 12, beginning at 9 a.m. at the Green Center.

Topping off the festival will be a closing concert by the DePauw Jazz Ensemble and guest trumpeter Pharez Whitted, leader of Chicago's acclaimed Pharez Whitted Sextet.

All performances, beginning at 9 a.m. with the Greencastle Middle School Jazz Band, will take place in Moore Theatre, located within the Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts on the DePauw campus.

Each student group is allocated a 20-minute performance, which will be followed by a 20-minute clinic with Whitted, this year's guest clinician as well as performer.

After judges complete the awards tabulations, the DePauw Jazz Ensemble will join the award-winning jazz trumpeter for the final performance of the day at 5 p.m.

A 1982 graduate of DePauw, former resident of Indianapolis and a regular at Indy's Jazz Kitchen, Whitted has worked with such musical giants as Wynton and Branford Marsalis, George Duke, Kirk Whalum, The Temptations, Lou Rawls and Ramsey Lewis.

General admission to Whitted's guest spot with the DePauw Jazz Ensemble is $5. Tickets for seniors, youth and all students are free and may be obtained online (music.depauw.edu) or at the GCPA box office one hour prior to the closing concert.

For more detailed information and schedule of events, all of which are open to the public, visit www.music.depauw.edu/programs/yap/jazzfestival.

Saturday, March 12,

Jazz Festival Schedule

All performances, unless otherwise noted, are in the GCPA's Moore Theatre:

11:15 a.m. -- Pharez Whitted clinic (GCPA, Room 1115).

12:15 p.m. -- Lunch (Union Building).

3 p.m. -- John Adams High School Jazz Band I .

3:45 p.m. -- Pharez Whitted clinic (GCPA, Room 1115).

4:30 p.m. -- Sound check, Moore Theatre.

5-7 p.m. -- Presentation of awards and closingcConcert by he DePauw Jazz Ensemble, Steve Snyder, director, and Pharez Whitted, trumpet.