How good of a player should a person be to join the Freshman Jazz Ensemble?
A. The most important traits of a successful member in any New Trier music ensemble is a positive attitude with a willingness to learn (teachable) and try new musical concepts. Students with outstanding performance abilities will not succeed if they do not have a positive, helpful, and teachable attitude. Having said that… a student will be required to practice at home. The music that is performed in our groups is just too difficult to learn only in class. Home practice and the help of a private teacher will go far to being successful in the New Trier Music Department. By the middle of the first quarter, most students in past Freshman Jazz Ensembles practiced five or six times a week, and probably thirty minutes per practice session. Many students who did not practice much in junior high school find themselves to be more motivated at high school and raise their quantity and quality of home practice.
