Moravian College Professor Neil Wetzel is on a Mission to Promote Jazz in the Lehigh Valley and Beyond

SteelStacks High School Jazz Band Showcase to Air - April 4

Neil WetzelBethlehem, Pa, April 1, 2015—Neil Wetzel’s passion for jazz continues to spread across the Lehigh Valley and beyond. For the past four years, the associate professor of music and director of jazz studies at Moravian College has been an integral part of a prominent regional arts event— SteelStacks High School Jazz Band Showcase. A specially produced TV show spotlighting the high school jazz groups will be broadcast on WFMZ-TV Channel 69 on Saturday, April on at 9:00 p.m.

The Showcase features local high school jazz ensembles that participated in three preliminary rounds of performances. They were evaluated by judges that were coordinated by Wetzel, and the top groups invited to a finals round. In the final round, top high school jazz soloists were awarded full scholarships to attend Moravian College’s Summer Jazz Camp @ Moravian.

"I am amazed at the high level of performance I hear at the SteelStacks Showcase, the young jazz musicians in the Lehigh Valley are remarkable,” Wetzel noted. “It is evident that our local music educators work diligently and tirelessly to inspire these young people through jazz and to promote the legacy of this great American art form."

The three top rated bands from the finals also get the chance to meet and work with (via an educational music clinic) groups featured at ArtsQuest RiverJazz Festival later this spring. In 2015, the groups leading workshops with the high school students include Spyrogyra, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

As education director of the Showcase, Wetzel creates parameters for the showcase, creating rules, policies and evaluation criteria. He is also the head judge and helps to emcee part of the Showcase.

Wetzel will also lead an All-Star jazz ensemble made up of the best students from each of the high school groups. This elite jazz band will rehearse throughout the summer at Moravian College and then have a featured performance at Musikfest on August 8th in the MusikFest Café.

Since its inception in 2011, the showcase has been produced and presented through a partnership between ArtsQuest, Moravian College, WFMZ-TV and corporate sponsors King, Spry, Herman, Freund & Faul, LLC.

“I commend SteelStacks and their partners for their support and recognition of the importance of arts education. It is programs like these that focus on creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving through the arts, three aspects that cannot be easily measured in standardized tests," Wetzel concluded.