For the fourth time in five years, the Middlebury Union High School Jazz Ensemble has won the Vermont Association of Jazz Educators annual competition at the Flynn Theater in Burlington.

Middlebury was chosen from among about 24 high school jazz bands that competed for the honor of performing in the VAJE’s evening concert, which also features the Vermont Jazz Ensemble.

“I was very excited. We earned it,” Band Director Anne Severy said. Severy, who has been teaching at MUHS for the past 26 years, says her bands’ success is due to daily ensemble as well as daily ear training and playing modes in jazz.

Also at the festival, alto saxophonist Caetano Hanta-Davis and set drummer Mark Pettit were selected as outstanding performers. Caetano also won first place at the All State Jazz Scholarship audition in January and was chosen to perform his winning selection on May 11th, at the Burlington High School All State Jazz Concert.

Hanta-Davis and fellow saxophonist James Pecsok were both selected for the All State Jazz Ensemble, which performed the same evening.

This competition marked the last for several jazz band members who will graduate in June. Saxophonist Daniel Mench-Thurlow, who has been in the jazz band since freshman year, was very proud of the way the jazz band performed at the Flynn.

“We played our hearts out. I felt very confident going on, that we would win.”
Fellow senior saxophonist Addison Tate echoed Mench-Thurlow’s thoughts, saying “we funked it hard.“ Tate, Mench-Thurlow, Austin Kincaid, Graham Barlow, Jimmy Fitzcharles, Emily Byers, Sawyer McLaughlin, and Elise Biette are all seniors who leave the school this month.

Yared Lacey, a sophomore guitarist who played for the VAJE for the first time this year, said, “I was on Cloud Nine. This was my first time playing for the VAJE and I felt like a boss for once. I felt like I was better than all the other guitar players there. I am excited to go back next year, because I feel that I still could have played better.”

While some members of the jazz band have been especially outstanding, Severy attributes the win to the entire band. “They work as a team” she said. “There’s a lot of depth in that group. It’s not just one guy.”

The Jazz Band finished the school year by playing at a picnic concert in the MUHS courtyard last week. It was scheduled to play at the Discover Jazz Festival on Church Street on Monday, June 4th, after this edition went to press.