DIZZY HEIGHTS: Orange High School Year 12 students Chris Ryan (sax), Jake Arnold (trumpet) and Jackson Bankovic (trombone) are taking their love of jazz to the next level, joining the Generations in Jazz Academy in South Australia. Photo: NICK McGRATH 0821nmOHS1
MEET the next Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong and JJ Johnson - and all three jazz proteges are set to take the music world by storm.
Orange High School Year 12 students Chris Ryan, Jackson Bankovic and Jake Arnold have been invited to join the South Australian-based Generations in Jazz Academy, a new jazz school designed to inspire and engage young musicians.
School leavers from around Australia are invited to join the exclusive program and take part in specialised music subjects, held at the academy by the University of Adelaide’s Diploma of Music (Jazz) faculty.
Seventeen budding jazz stars make the cut each year.
With a large pool to pick from, it is an opportunity usually only afforded to one musician at any given school.
The fact Orange High School has three speaks volumes about the talented trio.
“It’s the off-shoot of a big national competition that our school band went to a couple of months ago. It was a big, big competition and we won our section and the three of us got talent scouted and we’ve been offered the opportunity,” Jake, a trumpet player for the last 10 years, said.
“It’s going to be really good. It’s pretty impressive for our school.”
Generations in Jazz is Australia’s largest youth jazz competition and the second largest in the world, with the Orange trio set to kick-off their jazz journey early in the new year.
It is based in Mount Gambier, South Australia, the jazz capital of Australia and is essentially a jazz man’s dream.
For Jake, Chris and Jackson, there’s nowhere else they would rather be, and jazz is the only music they want to play.
“For me, it’s a pure form of expression,” Jake said.
“Things you can’t express with words, you can just pick up an instrument you’ve been learning and say something through music.”
Jackson, a trombone player, and saxophonist Chris both agree the opportunity to continue their music at such a level is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“I don’t get this level of love for anything else,” Jackson said.
“No matter what I do, music is what I enjoy the most so it’s what I’m looking to further myself in.”