Jazzed Up: Barrington and German Students Perform Together Sunday

BARRINGTON, RI—Barrington High School is the place to be tonight (Sunday) for a great jazz performance from some young talent.

The Barrington High School Jazz Ensemble will be performing with The Phoenix Foundation Jazz Band, a youth jazz orchestra consisting of students from the Rheinland-Pfalz region of Germany.

The free concert is at 7 p.m. in the John Gray Auditorium at Barrington High School.

Both bands then will zoom off to New York City on Monday to listen to the legendary Charles Mingus Big Band play at the Jazz Standard. Then it’s office to Philadelphia, PA, to participate in workshops with members of the New York Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and take part in the Essentially Ellington Regional Jazz Festival at Temple Univerity on March 1.

“I first heard The Phoenix Foundation at the Essentially Ellington Regional Jazz Festival at Temple in 2014 and was really impressed with their playing and with Frank’s direction,” said Barbara Hughes, director of bands at Barrington High School. “Frank and I agreed it would be a great experience for all the students if his band stopped in Barrington the next time they were in the States to rehearse and perform with our band.”

Hughes added that during the Phoenix Foundation’s stay in Barrington they will be hosted by families in the jazz band and also tour Brown University and jam with the Brown University Jazz Band.

The Phoenix Foundation, located in Mainz and sponsored by the “Landesmusikrat Rheinland-Pfalz” (State Music Association of Rhineland-Palatinate), was founded in 1979. The group features 20 talented jazz musicians who are interested in furthering their musical studies at university. The group has toured throughout the United States, Korea, Brazil, South Africa, China, India and Bolivia and performed with international well-known musicians such as Michael Philipp Mossman, Peter Weniger, Ack van Rooyen and Terell Stafford.

Reichert, Conductor of the Phoenix Foundation, is a music teacher at Wilhelm Hofmann Gymnasium High School, in St. Goarshausen. He studied at university in Mainz and played jazz trumpet in bands and big bands in Rheinland-Pfalz and other parts of Germany. He is also leader of Coming Up, the Wilhelm Hofmann Gymnasium St. Goar/Rheinland Palatinate Jazz Ensemble.