Senior Owen Halfpenny and The Youth Jazz Ensemble of DuPage (YJED) will be going to the Lincoln Center May 2025 located in New York City for the annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival to compete with the best jazz teams from around the world.
“It’s supposed to be the most premier jazz competition in the world,” senior Owen Halfpenny said. “Last year was YJED’s third time qualifying. This is the first time we’ve made it two years consecutively and it will be my first time going.”
The ensemble is directed by Robert Blazek, who has directed them almost every season since 1998, taking a couple years off when his daughter was in high school, making this their 28th season. Throughout the history of YJED, they have tried to qualify for Ellington every year, with the exception of a couple years where the competition changed its rules to only allow high schools and added a separate division for conglomerates.
“This is the third time we will be headed to New York—2001, then 23 years later in 2024, and now in 2025. However, in 2008, we entered under the National Conglomerate Division and actually won, so technically, it’s four times,” Blazek said. “We’re the only Illinois band this year, and I think we’ve been the only Illinois band since 2019.”
Every year, 25 bands across the nation are selected out of thousands that try to qualify. The bands that are selected go to the Lincoln Center to perform in front of several judges and are scored based on their performance of different songs by Duke Ellington. Songs are assigned different difficulty levels, and the higher the difficulty, the higher the possible score.
“This is the 30th anniversary of the Essentially Ellington program and as a way to celebrate, they have selected 30 bands internationally to perform , rather than the 15 just in the U.S.,” DGS senior Gavin Schnall said. “There’s 27 bands from the U.S., and then there’s three bands from different countries. There’s one from Japan, one from Australia, and then one from Spain. So they’re doing a couple extra things for this 30th-year celebration.”
Each year, Essentially Ellington sends a clinician to help each ensemble practice their songs. This year, YJED got to work with Christopher Crenshaw, who is a world renowned trombonist and pianist for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. The clinic was held at DGN and lasted four hours.
“Having Mr. Crenshaw come in to work with YJED really makes this experience feel real. Ellington has felt so far away but getting to see and hear Christopher in person made me realize that this is really happening, and it’s happening fast,” Halfpenny said.
Another thing that sets YJED apart from other ensembles is they only practice once a week. Many of the high schools that qualify typically practice every day because they have time integrated into the school day. Thankfully, the students of YJED take the time to practice outside of their weekly Monday practices to practice each piece.
“It’s really not about coming in first or second place. Of course, we want to make it to round two, but we’re competing against some of the best schools in the country,” Blazek said. “For us, it’s about knowing we’re doing something right, that the students are having a great time, and that they’ve worked together for a common cause.”