CRESTVIEW — Crestview High School's performing arts and culinary arts programs will unite in a Feb. 20 public affair.
The school’s jazz band will swing Warriors Hall while guests can nibble treats catered by the school’s Culinary Department in a band uniform fundraiser hosted by the Friends of the Arts.
“We’re keeping this an all-Crestview-High event to showcase the culinary arts as well as the band,” Friends President Rae Schwartz said.
The event allows students to gain “real world” experience, band director Jody Dunn and culinary instructor Chef Chuck Tingle said.
“The focus of the jazz ensemble is to become professional musicians,” Dunn said. “This will give them some good experience in a public, non-school setting.”
“The kids are going to get off-site experience,” Tingle said. “To actually cater an event off-site, and bring food over with us, will be a good experience for them.”
Tingle said his advanced students, and possibly some of his introductory class students, will help create some of the hors d’oeuvres to be served before the concert and during intermission.
“It’s all going to be done by the students,” he said, “so it’s all going to be done from scratch.”
Concertgoers may expect “a wide variety of jazz, including standards and modern arrangements," Dunn said.
Friends member Bob Allen, who helped organize the concert, said Dunn told him the performance will be more than an opportunity for the public to enjoy the community’s jazz ensemble.
“Jody is elated they’ll have essentially a dress rehearsal before they go to competition,” Allen said, saying regional performance competitions will be held shortly after the Crestview concert.
Though Friends of the Arts members raise funds to maintain the Warriors Hall piano and enhance the auditorium, Schwartz said she hopes the City Council will permit profits from ticket sales to go to the community’s jazz band.
In case the organization is required to pay the city’s hall rental fee, FOTA is looking for business or individual sponsors to assure all money raised through ticket sales goes to buying new band uniforms.
WANT TO GO?
WHAT: Valentine’s and All That Jazz, a fundraising concert for the Crestview High School band uniform fund featuring the jazz band, with catering by the CHS Culinary Department
WHEN: 7 p.m. Feb. 20
WHERE: Warriors Hall, Whitehurst Municipal Building, 201 Stillwell Ave., Crestview
TICKETS: $10, includes hors d'oeuvres by the CHS Culinary Department
CONTACT: Rae Schwartz, 585-5672 or bakerny@yahoo.com, to help sponsor the concert and fund catered food costs
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: February concert features CHS jazz ensemble and culinary arts (VIDEO)