Three Seattle-area bands made the finals of the nation’s top high school jazz contest, the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival in New York City. Selected for a trip to the Big Apple this spring are: Bothell High School, directed by Zane Romanek; Mountlake Terrace High School, directed by Darin Faul; and Shorewood High School, directed by Dan Baker.
Bothell High School continued a streak of being in the finals dating back to 2022. Mountlake Terrace was a finalist for the second straight year. And Shorewood earned its spot on the list for the first time since 2008.
Conspicuously absent among this year’s finalists are the prestigious programs at Seattle’s Garfield and Roosevelt high schools, two schools that will be represented by Seattle brass quartet The Westerlies at the Grammy Awards on Sunday. Both schools completed applications for the 2026 competition; the applications were judged blind. Todd Stoll, vice president of education at Jazz at Lincoln Center, said over the phone, “The legacy of Garfield and Roosevelt is that more schools are trying to be like them. They inspired the rest of the community.”
This year’s festival, its 31st iteration, takes place at Lincoln Center from April 30-May 2.
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