The Boyer College of Music and Dance presents the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Festival.

The Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Program (EE) is unique among educational resources for high school jazz bands. Each year, Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) transcribes, publishes, and distributes charts by Duke Ellington and other seminal big band composers and arrangers, along with additional educational materials to bands in the U.S., Canada and American schools abroad. Beyond providing these charts, EE also supports its members throughout the school year with a variety of initiatives including teaching guides, the Essentially Ellington website, newsletters, a student composition contest, and professional feedback of student performances of the charts. Schools that join the program are eligible for participation in noncompetitive regional festivals and have the option to submit a recording for the national Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival held annually in New York City at Frederick P. Rose Hall, the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Fifteen bands are selected as finalists and, to prepare, each finalist band receives an in-school workshop in their community led by a professional musician. The Competition & Festival culminates in a three-day festival in May for the finalist bands, including workshops, rehearsals, jam sessions, and performances. The three top-placing bands perform an evening concert with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Since 1995, over 600,000 students have participated in Essentially Ellington. To date, more than 180,000 copies of 126 previously unavailable scores have been distributed to more than 4,500 schools in the United States, Canada and American schools abroad. In 2006, Essentially Ellington piloted noncompetitive, education-focused regional festivals in an effort to reach more bands and provide the opportunity to perform Ellington's music and receive professional feedback from JALC clinicians and other jazz professionals in their own backyard.

Founding leadership support for Essentially Ellington is provided by The Jack and Susan Rudin Educational and Scholarship Fund. Major support is provided by Jessica and Natan Bibliowicz, Alfred and Gail Engelberg, Casey Lipscomb, Dr. J. Douglas White and the King-White Family Foundation, Augustine Foundation, Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation, and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Bloomberg, Con Edison, Entergy, and United Airlines.

The program will be available at https://boyer.temple.edu/events/programs