Structuring a Comprehensive Jazz Ensemble Curriculum
Clinician(s): Josh Murray
Josh Murray has been Band Director at Rio Americano High School in Sacramento since 1998. Rio’s AM Jazz Ensemble has been a finalist at the Essentially Ellington Festival eleven times, was chosen as winners of the 2019 national “Perform With Bob Mintzer” competition, recently hosted and opened a concert with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and has performed worldwide with tours of Japan, China, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Australia, Ireland, Austria, The Czech Republic, and with South Korea planned for 2025. Rio’s musicians and bands have won dozens of DownBeat Magazine Student Music Awards, and are three-time winners of the Charles Mingus Festival’s combo category. Rio’s music students have gone on to nearly every top music school and conservatory, and many alumni are active professional musicians and educators. Murray is a contributing author to Teaching Music Through Performance in Jazz, Vol. 2, and was awarded the California Music Education Association (CMEA) Jazz Education Award for 2024.
Session Handouts