The student-based Jazz Academy Enseble performs live on WGN-TV July 27, 2011.
The Ensemble is led by Camp Director Orbert Davis and camp instructor Roosevelt Griffin.
Click here to watch the segment from WGN Midday News.

Chicago Jazz Philharmonic/UIC Jazz Academy is a summer jazz camp that builds on CJP's school year programming known as "JazzAlive". Students develop skills and knowledge about music and music performance through participation in various ensembles such as Jazz Band, Drumline, Handchimes, and Strings. Additional courses offered range from Jazz Aesthetics to Instrumental Technique.

Located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the camp opens up new opportunities for the participants.

Chicago Jazz Philharmonic/UIC Jazz Academy helps resolve three critical issues:

• The need for children in underserved communities to become interested in pursuing higher education
• The lack of sustained music education from grade school through high school
• The need to preserve jazz as a genre for the next generation

The Chicago Jazz Philharmonic/UIC Jazz Academy connects students to an outstanding institution of higher learning. This exposure helps students break down perceived barriers to higher education and enhances their chances for life-long success.

University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Performing Arts (DPA)

• UIC is conveniently located on the near west side of Chicago and it is easily accessible by car, train, and bus.
• More than 25,000 students who study at UIC come from the city of Chicago, its suburbs, from all 50 states, and 95 foreign countries.
• DPA is committed to music and theatre as forms of artistic expression that have a crucial role to play in the cultural, intellectual, social, and political life of the community in which they exist, and in the world as a whole.
• DPA is housed in the College of Architecture and the Arts, which also includes the Schools of Architecture, Art and Design, and the Department of Art History.
• UIC Performing Arts faculty hold national and international credentials as artists, teachers, and/or scholars.

Students need to register in advance for the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic/UIC Jazz Academy. The $175 tuition includes coursework, materials, lunch, and recreational activities.

Orbert Davis has a Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance from DePaul University and a Masters of Music in Jazz Pedagogy from Northwestern University. In addition to being a world-renowned jazz musician, he is a composer and conductor and the Founding and Artistic Director for the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. His two critically acclaimed recordings, Priority and Blue Notes, both reached the top ten on the national JazzWeek jazz charts. Davis is Associate Professor and Director of Jazz Studies in UIC's Department of Performing Arts.

Gene Collerd is the Chairman of the Department of Performing Arts and also holds B.A. and M.M. degrees from Yale University where he studied clarinet with Keith Wilson and conductied with Otto-Werner Mueller. He has also studied with clarinetists Anthony Gigliotti, Robert Marcellus, and Richard Stoltzman. He is a Professor of Music at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he directs the String Ensemble and teaches clarinet. He joined the Elgin Symphony as principal clarinetist in 1990 and also plays principal clarinet with Chicago Opera Theater, assistant principal clarinet with the Grant Park Symphony, and is a member of the Chicago Wind Quintet and the chamber orchestra Ars Viva. In 1992 he performed as a soloist with the Elgin Symphony in Weber's Concerto No. 1. That same year he won the woodwind prize in the Southeast Iowa Symphony Concerto Competition and made several solo appearances with that orchestra.

For a full list of instructors click here