Juilliard and Snow jazz programs jam together

EPHRAIM, Sanpete County — A chance meeting at a New York City jazz club has blossomed into a collaboration between the Juilliard School of Music and the Horne School of Music at Snow College.

It all started when Laurie Carter, executive director of Juilliard's jazz studies program, was attending a concert at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, a jazz club and restaurant near Juilliard. Dizzy's is affiliated with the jazz program at New York's Lincoln Center.

During the concert, she said, she met "a very friendly man" who raved about the Snow music program and the school's 3-year-old, $18 million Eccles Center for the Performing Arts. He wondered out loud if there was some way Juilliard and Snow could get together.

The informal ambassador was Dan Jorgensen, husband of Dr. Elaine Jorgensen. Elaine Jorgensen is a former Juilliard student who is now director of chamber music at Snow.

It happened that Carter had been looking for a place outside New York, perhaps in the Midwest, where Juilliard's jazz studies program could set up an outpost. But she'd never thought of Utah.

It's only been in the past couple of decades that jazz, which Carter describes as "America's classical music," has been accepted into mainstream higher education. Juilliard's program is only 6 years old.

Carter and the Juilliard jazz studies faculty wanted to get their message about the importance of jazz out into the country, and promote their program to future students. One vehicle, they believed, would be offering instruction in a beautiful, relaxed setting.

"The way Dan described this environment, it sounded perfect, and it is," Carter said.

In early August, the two institutions staged the key instructional event in their partnership, the second Juilliard Jazz Faculty Goes to the Mountains Workshop at the Eccles Center.

The workshop goal, a brochure explained, was to enable students to "dramatically improve their talent" in jazz performance and to "prepare students for a future in music by giving them the opportunity to meet people who have succeeded in the music business."

Thirty-seven high school and college students attended this year, about double the enrollment a year ago. Most of the participants were from Utah, but one student came from Ohio and another from Oklahoma. The faculty included three Juilliard professors, three Snow faculty and three Juilliard students who served as teaching assistants.