BYU-Idaho Center’s Stage will come alive with swinging jazz music from students and special guests at this year’s Jazz Festival.
The acclaimed Marshall Gilkes will take the stage to perform with BYU-Idaho’s top big band jazz group, Sound Alliance and the Jazz Festival Honor Band made up of local high school students.
Gilkes is a Grammy nominated world class trombonist who’s predominantly known for his work with the WDR Big Band, his eight albums and world tours. He’s bringing his original music to perform, and Aaron Miller, director of Jazz Studies on campus hopes the community will take advantage of the opportunity to watch him live.
“I've seen him perform at conferences and at concert settings, and he is insane, and his writing is really beautiful,” Miller said. “I think anybody that enjoys live music would enjoy what he brings to the table. To capture him or to be able to hear his music, most people would have to go somewhere over in Europe to hear him perform and we get to have that here in Rexburg, which is pretty awesome.”
The Jazz Festival is an annual tradition at BYU-Idaho. It showcases the students’ talent and dedication and the faculty’s hours of work to prepare them for the concert.
“I think it's like our national championship but for jazz,” Miller said. “If you're thinking about a sports analogy, it's like our playoff, you know, this is our culminating activity that we get to do every year and get to really showcase the talents that we have in that band.”
The festival is Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the BYU-Idaho Center. Tickets are $16 or $12 with an I-card and can be found at tickets.byui.edu.
“I think we all got used to the idea of consuming entertainment at home on our own,” Miller said. “There's something really special when we get together with other people and experience something live, in person that really we can't recreate, and a musical concert has just the same opportunity to elevate and to bless our lives.”