Saturday, March 15, 2025
The annual UNH jazz festival features guest artists, UNH jazz faculty, the UNH Jazz Band, and high school students from throughout New England. and New York. The UNH jazz faculty enjoyed a long-standing relationship with jazz great, Clark Terry. In his honor and name, the Music Department holds an annual jazz festival. The festival includes adjudicated performances by high school groups, clinics and performances by guest artists and UNH students, and gala concerts by guest artists and the UNH Jazz Band.
Each year, the festival attracts jazz groups from 55-60 high schools throughout New England and New York. Performing groups include high school big bands, jazz combos, jazz choirs, as well as solo vocalists. All groups are adjudicated and given written and recorded comments.
Apply to Jazz Fest
- Jazz Fest Registration Form 2025: https://forms.gle/zDfD9z7JPrLLEZns7
- Letter to Directors 2025
- Evening Concerts and Ticket Purchase:
- Tickets are available to the public for the 6:00 PM Vocal Jazz Concert featuring Chris Humphrey and the UNH Faculty Jazz Quartet & the 7:00 PM Marshall Gilkes and Christine Jensen & the UNH Faculty Jazz Quartet. Tickets are $5 each, and can be reserved by emailing Lyndsay Boysen at clarkterryjazzfestival@gmail.com
Contact Information
Nathan Jorgensen
Associate Professor of Music (jazz, woodwinds)
M129 Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
University of New Hampshire
Phone: (603) 862-2404
Fax: (603) 862-3155
Email: nathan.jorgensen@unh.edu
Lyndsay Boysen
Program Assistant
Summer Youth Music School
Clark Terry UNH Jazz Festival
Email: clarkterryjazzfestival@gmail.com
Department of Music
Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Phone: (603) 862-2404
Email: music.info@unh.edu
Christine Jensen
Composer, conductor and saxophonist Christine Jensen has contributed a distinctive voice to creative jazz scene with large and small ensemble for the last twenty-five years. As a Downbeat Critic’s Poll winner for Rising Star ‘Big Band’, ‘Arranger’, and ‘Soprano Saxophonist’, she is constantly in motion leading her own jazz orchestra and small ensembles. Her jazz orchestra recordings have gone on to win Canada’s Juno Awards, including Habitat (2014) and Treelines (2011). In 2024 she received her third Juno for her quartet album Day Moon. She is two-time recipient of SOCAN’s prestigious Hagood Hardy Jazz Composer Award. Habitat received the coveted 5 stars in Downbeat, along with ‘Jazz Album of the Year’. In 2017, Jensen was awarded The Prix Oscar Peterson from the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
Jensen’s music has taken her all over the world, where she has received commissions, performance and conducting opportunities in Canada, the US and Europe. In 2023 she led the HR Big band-Frankfurt in conducting and arranging with American saxophonist Mark Turner and his music, alongside her mentor and teacher Jim McNeely. She has appeared as invited guest artist with Frost School of Music-UMiami, The New School-NY, University of Michigan, UMO Jazz Orchestra-Finland, Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, Vancouver’s Hard Rubber Orchestra, Berklee, and the Luxembourg Jazz Orchestra. Performance highlights include collaborating with Jeremy Pelt, Phil Dwyer, Ben Monder, Gary Smuylan, Geoffrey Keezer, Lenny Pickett, and Donny McCaslin, as well as directing Terrence Blanchard with the Orchestre National Jazz de Montreal. In 2022 she became the inaugural artistic director and conductor of the Canadian National Jazz Orchestra. Between 2012 and 2022 she collaborated extensively with Orchestre National Jazz de Montreal, including composing, conducting and recording Under the Influence Suite, which went on to receive Quebec’s Prix Opus for ‘Jazz Recording of the Year’ in 2017.
In 2022 Jensen joined the Eastman faculty as professor of jazz studies, where she teaches jazz composition and arranging, as well as directing the award-winning Eastman Jazz Ensemble. Previously she held positions at McGill University, Purchase College, University of Sherbrooke, Université de Montreal, as well as being artistic director of McGill Jazz Orchestra I along with small ensembles. After Jensen graduated from McGill University’s jazz program, she studied at The Banff Centre with Jim Hall and Kenny Wheeler. This led her to further her studies with Kenny Werner, Jim McNeely, Dick Oatts, Remi Bolduc and John Hollenbeck.
Marshall Gilkes
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Slide Monsters, bassist Richard Bona, pianist Makoto Ozone and numerous other top-tier musicians and outfits. And through his work with the WDR Big Band and as a longtime member of the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Gilkes has played himself into the rich history of large ensemble music. A marvel of musicality sought after and highly respected in both the jazz and classical worlds, Gilkes has earned his rightful place in the upper echelon of both realms. Not surprisingly, his vast experience and genre-straddling skills have made him an in-demand educator. At various points in his career, Gilkes has served on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory of Music. In addition, he's shared his knowledge and skills through master classes, clinics, guest appearances and teaching at other venerable institutions including the Banff Center, University of North Texas, the Brubeck Institute, Manchester's Royal Northern College of Music and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. An S. E. Shires Artist, Gilkes performs on his signature model trombone—an instrument as versatile as its inspiration.
Release Date: Monday, February 23, 2015
Jazz great Clark Terry passed away on February 21, 2015. He was 94 years old.
Clark Terry was an affiliate professor of music at the University of New Hampshire. He had a 40-year relationship with the institution. Music Professor Dave Seiler brought Terry to UNH in the mid-1970s to headline his new jazz festival. Thus started a long friendship between the two and an ongoing affiliation, with Terry returning to UNH annually to perform and record with scores of UNH students and faculty members. Terry led student tours of Europe and, in 1976, fronted the UNH Jazz Band that became the first college ensemble ever to play on an evening bill at the famed Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. UNH awarded Terry an honorary doctorate, his first, in 1978, and the Pettee Medal in 2002.
An obituary in the Boston Globe explains Terry's impact on the world of jazz and jazz education.
"He left a real lasting impact on kids," David Seiler, director of jazz studies at UNH, told the Globe. "I've had all kinds of people here doing clinics, but nobody tops him. He inspired kids so readily."
Seiler added that Terry "exuded joy through his instrument" and that when he taught young musicians, "he'd say, 'The purpose of the clinic is the perpetuation of the jazz language.' He always said that. Even in his 90s he was inspiring people."
Terry was recently in the public eye thanks to a documentary about him released last year. Called Keep On Keepin’ On, the critically-acclaimed film by Alan Hicks examines the relationship between the trumpeter Clark Terry and the young pianist Justin Kauflin.
More information on Terry can be found in the New York Times tribute: Clark Terry, Master of Jazz Trumpet, Dies at 94.
