Iowa Jazz Championships

The 2012 Iowa Jazz Championships

will be held on Tuesday, April 10th.

Musco Lighting of Oskaloosa is the official sponsor of the Iowa Jazz Championships, with additional support from the Iowa Music Educators Association.

Links:

The Iowa Jazz Championships brings together 60 of Iowa's finest high school jazz ensembles (15 from each of the four IHSMA classes) to Des Moines for a great day of jazz each April.  The event was founded by Iowa jazz educators over thirty years ago and continues to be an important event on the Iowa high school band landscape each spring.

Classes 1A, 2A, and 3A perform at the Veterans Memorial Convention Center (part of the Iowa Events Center).  Class 4A competition is held at the Des Moines Civic Center.  

Tickets for the day competition are $10 and cover admission to all day time performances at both locations.  Tickets are for the day contest are not sold in advance.

Tickets to the evening finals, beginning at 7 pm, are sold for $10 at the Civic Center Box Office at (515) 243-1285.  The top two bands from each of the classes are invited to play at the evening finals.  

All Iowa high school jazz programs are eligible for an invitation to the Iowa Jazz Championships.   Automatic invitations are issued to the first and second place bands in each class of the six district jazz festivals.  In districts where there are only two bands in a class, only the first place band is issued an automatic invitation.  In districts where only one band competes in a class, that band is issued an automatic invitation.  Each district is empowered with operating their own district jazz festival to determine automatic qualifiers.  

Each March the Iowa Jazz Championships Board of Directors meets to determine wild card qualifiers to the event.  The Board of Directors is made up of the directors from the top three bands at the previous years competition.   

In order to be eligible for a wild card selection bands must meet one of the following three criteria:

1) Beat a band that is an automatic qualifier at an independent jazz festival in Iowa.

2) Win an independent jazz festival in Iowa with at least two bands in that class.

 3) Finish 3rd in a district jazz festival with at least four bands entered.

 Only bands meeting at least one of these criteria will be considered for a wild card invitation.  

The IJC Board annually selects co-chairs and a treasurer to coordinate the event.   Current co-chairs are Alan Feirer (alan@groupdynamic.us), Jason Pentico (jason.pentico@pella.k12.ia.us), and Steve Shanley (steve.shanley@gmail.com) .  Please contact any of these people with questions related to the Iowa Jazz Championships.