ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) – Several firsts are taking place at Eastman School of Music. Last year, Eastman recruited Sara Gazarek from California to design the vocal jazz program at Eastman.
This semester the Grammy Award-winning artist is teaching the inaugural Jazz Voice class.
“It’s Exciting to see those light bulbs go off in young minds,” Gazarek explains minutes before her class begins.
When Gazarek studied Jazz in college, she was one of two females in a program dominated by male students and professors.
“It was interesting to look around the room and just see this sort of collegiate thing that was happening to them and feeling a little bit like an outsider, and it continues in my professional career as well,” Gazarek said.
The gap between female and male instrumentalists is even wider. Christine Jensen plays the saxophone and is the first tenured track female faculty member in the Jazz & Contemporary Media Department.
She points out that in middle school girls make up half the jazz band but by the end of high school, females make up a third of the jazz musicians and at top U.S. music schools such as Eastman, the numbers are even lower.
On September 20-21, Eastman is hosting the first Sisters in Jazz weekend. Young woman musicians, ages 11 to 21, are encouraged to participate in a weekend of improvisation workshops, networking and performances by world renowned female artists like bassist and composer Endea Owens (and The Cookout), harpist Brandee Younger and others.
“I am excited to see young people looking on that stage and seeing themselves reflected.” said Gazarek.
The artists will share their sounds and stories in a space intentionally designed to inspire more young females in Rochester to experience the joys of jazz. More details can be found here.
