Life

Free concert wraps up the Joy of Jazz! festival Saturday

Young musicians will perform a free concert at 4 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at the HHS auditorium to culminate the Joy of Jazz Festival! [CONTRIBUTED]

By Lightning Reports, Published: April 16, 2025

The halls of Hendersonville High School will ring out with the sounds of jazz when the seventh annual high school Joy of Jazz Festival! gets under way at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 19, and culminates in a free public concert by the young musicians at 4 p.m. in the school auditorium.

The “Joy of Jazz Festival” was created in 2017 by then Hendersonville Community Music Center Director Robin Tolleson, an accomplished percussionist and band leader. After Robin’s sudden passing in June of 2019, the HCMC board and the Tolleson family decided to use money donated in Rob’s memory to continue the “Joy of Jazz Festival” in his honor. Donations last year by Trinity Presbyterian Church and the Kealy Family Foundation are supporting the festival this year.

The festival is a one-day clinic in which local high school jazz bands work with professional jazz musicians, fine tuning their pieces and working on improvisation skills. This year students from Hendersonville High School, West Henderson High School and the Greenville Jazz Collective Youth Ensemble will work with respected teaching artists including Shannon Hoover (M.A. – Anderson University and Greenville Jazz Collective), Jason DeCristofaro (Boston University doctorate and director of Creative Arts & Events at Warren Wilson College), Will Boyd (M.A. – University of Tennessee), Colleen Clark (University of North Texas doctorate and professor at University of South Carolina) and Dave Wilken (Asheville Jazz Orchestra). The community is invited to the concert at 4 p.m. in the auditorium.

For more information, contact lead festival coordinator Shannon Hoover at profmus1@yahoo.com and 864-353-7529 or Jocelyn Tolleson at jocelynctolleson@gmail.com.