Universal language: Annual jazz festival brings together students from across the state

PALMER — Twenty-five middle and high school jazz ensembles from across the state spent two days at Palmer High School, immersed in musical clinics and rehearsals with 21 professional jazz clinicians at the fourth annual Valley Jazz Festival.

“It’s growing every year,” PHS music instructor and event coordinator Barbara Carroll said.

The students worked on their skills, learned new techniques and showcased their talents on stage, playing multiple concerts in front of a live audience. Carroll said this was the biggest year to date.

“C’mon, go big or go home,” Carroll said.

For both Tayiib Dauda, saxophone instructor, and Mariah Madson, vocalist instructor, this was their first time visiting Alaska. They both are from Chicago, Illinois, and they both expressed their favorable impressions of the homegrown festival in Palmer that pulls talent from across the state, even as far as Fairbanks.

“Great community and great support for the arts for sure,” Dauda said.

Madson said this festival was well put together and full of opportunities for students to learn from a variety of professionals, get feedback and acquire new musical strategies. She said this festival opens doors to possibilities that “wouldn’t be available otherwise” to students.

“Truly, I can’t tell you how impressed I was with the music programing and all the students that came here to work together and get music together so quickly and so well,” Madson said.

Dauda said that he’s played music for about 15 years, and Madson said that she’s been at it for about 25 years. Dauda said that music itself is a valuable and inclusive form of expression that can be related to all over the world.

“I feel like it’s a universal language so if people don’t even speak the same language, people who don’t know how to play music, they understand music. You can convey a lot of messages to people that you would otherwise not be able to,” Dauda said.

Dauda is a middle school band director and is in three different bands that play around Chicago. He said that music is fun, thus making his work fun, so it “never really feels like work.”

During the festival, Dauda led workshops that taught Alaskan students how to improvise and about the 12 bar blues, a repeated twelve-bar chord progression which is the most common form of the blues. He said that he focused on showing the kids how to convey their emotions and messages and how to find their own sound.

“I’m really harping on the music is a language kind of thing,” Dauda said with a laugh.

Madson said that she also focused on the music as a universal language theme and taught her students how to empower themselves and grow by making themselves vulnerable. Trying new things, experimenting and putting oneself out in the open to face feedback overcoming the fear of condemnation or judgement is very important, especially for young musicians, she said.

“For me, I think that we talk about the word vulnerability as if it’s a weak thing and in fact, vulnerability is something that takes a lot of bravery and courage to do. It requires strength and when we ask our students to be vulnerable through music, we’re helping them become more strong and brave and exercise those character skills,” Madson said.

Houston High School freshman Hanna Davila plays the trombone as well as the bassoon and the occasional oboe. She said that she likes giving a piece of music more character and feels like playing music is therapeutic. She said that if properly executed, a strong musical piece will not only affect the player but will affect all who listen.

“The audience will feel it too. It really does rub off on people,” Davila said.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com