The Conservatory, a music & community arts school, based in Doylestown, Bucks County, presents a concert featuring the many and varied styles of Jazz. Two bands comprised of student musicians take the stage at The Underground, on Sunday afternoon, October 20, 2019. The students involved in the show are members of The Conservatory’s Jazz Performance Program, directed by music educator and keyboard player Bill Gottshall, a frequent performer at The Underground. The Conservatory’s Jazz Showcase format provides a unique type of mentoring for student musicians. Instructor and student stand shoulder-to-shoulder, performing jazz in an actual nightclub environment. This cooperative approach provides support for the young musician while he/she experiences the interplay of improvisation that takes place in a
jazz band. Director Bill Gottshall will be joined by father-son duo Ed & Michael Etkins, providing mentoring support onstage to the students of The Conservatory’s two jazz ensembles.
Ed Etkins is a veteran jazz musician who has played sax and flute in countless jazz ensembles during the past 50 years. In addition to his career as a performer, Ed is also a noted arranger and orchestrator. He is currently working on a long term project, searching through music archives, identifying and reconstructing the big band arrangements
of the late Maynard Ferguson, the great jazz trumpeter and bandleader. At the start of Ed’s music education career, he directed the Souderton Area High School Jazz Stage Band, whose 1972–73 edition included a teen-aged trumpet player who spent far too little time practicing his instrument, but who went on to become a jazz educator & musician himself, just the same, thanks to Etkins’ inspired mentoring. That lazy trumpet player was Bill Gottshall. Michael Etkins, son of Ed Etkins, is a bass player who has made a name for himself in the Delaware Valley jazz scene. Michael can be seen performing in numerous jazz clubs around the region, but he is most familiar to local audiences playing bass for Jump City Jazz Orchestra. Both he and his father have performed at The Underground several times in the recent past.
The Conservatory Jazz Showcase begins at 3:00 PM and will run about one hour. Tickets are $8.00 per person and are available both online and at the door. The Underground is an all-ages club. Children are welcome and encouraged to attend, as long as they are accompanied and supervised by an adult. The Conservatory is a 501c3 non-profit organization that provides free and subsidized programs to disadvantaged youth, persons with disabilities, and senior citizens. It depends upon generous donations and grants from individuals, corporations, and foundations to make certain that the arts are accessible to everyone.
Social media links:
The Conservatory
http://www.myconservatory.org/
https://www.facebook.com/The-Conservatory-102422363165711/