The Harlingen High School Jazz Ensembles traveled to the 45th Annual TAMUK Jazz Festival Saturday bringing back the very highest honors. The two day event saw the HHS Honors Jazz Ensemble named the overall Grand Champion of the Festival for the 4th consecutive year. All three HHS Jazz Ensembles received a Superior rating for their performance, and 1st place in their respective class.
The Honor Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Ronnie Rios, performed 4 songs consisting of an up-tempo swing, funk, ballad, and a samba. The group even received a perfect score from one of the three judges.
HHS Jazz Band 2 and Jazz Band 3, under the direction of Maria Coronado and Marc Telles respectively, performed 3 songs consisting of a swing, ballad and latin piece.
Several students were also recognized for their performance and named to the “All-Star” Jazz Band. Jessica Davis, alto sax, Cristian Ambriz, tenor sax, Aaron Gomez, trumpet, Mark Aguilar, flugel, Juan Maldonado, piano, and Delle Vargas, drums, were all named to this elite group.
HHS competed against schools from the Tuloso-Midway ISD, Alice ISD, Kingsville ISD, Weslaco ISD, Spring Branch ISD in Houston, PSJA ISD, McAllen ISD, United ISD in Laredo, Georgetown ISD and the Northeast ISD in San Antonio.