Earlier this year, a very special “wedding” of two Harborfields High School programs – the school’s jazz band and Tornado News team – took place on a field trip to Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church in Centerport. This first-of-its-kind project was the culmination of an idea long in the making.
Jazz Band Director Dan Bilawsky had commissioned three-time Grammy-nominated composer Alan Ferber to write an arrangement of Abdullah Ibrahim’s classic piece “The Wedding” for his student-musicians to record. The jazz band successfully completed their “Wedding” recording session at the church, and their performance was filmed for a multi-camera, single-microphone music video by the news team.
The high school’s journalism program, guided by adviser Vincent Ambrosio, then produced a 30-minute feature documentary on the entire “Wedding” process, edited by Fiona McLoughlin. The two school groups also collaborated on a second music video, of the jazz band performing “Reflections,” written by Thelonious Monk and arranged by Oliver Nelson.
“What started as an idea to commission an arrangement of a work I longed to perform with the Harborfields High School Jazz Band blossomed into an incredible experience about connectedness,” said Bilawsky, who is also the K-12 music department coordinator for the Harborfields Central School District. “In the best of times, a project like this video and documentary would’ve been difficult to coordinate in a school setting. Working through it in the ever-evolving COVID climate made things that much more difficult. But seeing our students work so hard together to create the music video and documentary really speaks to the triumphs inherent in the act of persistence and grasp for greater meaning.”
Harborfields’ “The Wedding” project garnered fervent praise from a number of other renowned figures in the music world, including South African drummer and composer Claude Cozens; saxophonist and University of South Africa Music Foundation Acting Director of Music Karen Devroop; trombonist, bandleader and Grammy-nominated arranger John Fedchock; jazz drummer, photographer and journalist C. Andrew Hovan; “Step Tempest” blogger Richard Kamins; University of Connecticut Director of Jazz Studies Earl MacDonald; South African bassist, composer and educator Carlo Mombelli; jazz pianist and educator Dr. Lewis Porter; “The Jazz Session Podcast” host Nicky Schrire; and “The Creative Source” host Dr. Brad Stone.
“An inspired music teacher and his young charges held up a gift to the light and reminded us that there is still care and beauty in this world,” said pianist, composer and University of KwaZulu-Natal jazz studies lecturer Neil Gonsalves.
“It’s wonderful enough for a student band to be exposed to the music of Abdullah Ibrahim, but it’s even more so when that band has the opportunity to play an arrangement straight from the pen of Alan Ferber, one of today’s true masters of the large ensemble idiom,” music critic, educator and journalist David Adler said.
“The world needs more of this kind of collaboration to help the youth better relate to musics such as jazz and understand the cultural nuances associated with such traditions,” New England Conservatory professor of music history Dr. Mehmet Ali Sanlikol said. “This genuine story of a community coming together has to inspire others.”
Please visit https://hftornadonews.org/wedding to learn more about this incredibly special project and to view the full documentary, a condensed version of that film, several stand-alone music videos and more.
Date Added: 5/25/2022