The 15th annual Bradley University Jazz Festival on Feb. 26 welcomed a world-famous jazz artist along with more performers and audience members in attendance than ever before.
To help celebrate the special year of the festival, Bradley hosted guest artist Wayne Bergeron, fresh from The Academy Awards. He is currently one of the most sought-after musicians in the world, performing internationally and having worked with artists such as Beyoncé, My Chemical Romance, Christina Aguilera and The Pussy Cat Dolls. Bergeron is credited for work in over 400 TV and movie soundtracks – “The Incredibles 2,” “La La Land,” “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Moana” and “Toy Story 3,” to name a few.
“Wayne Bergeron is the top call trumpet player in Los Angeles … he played trumpet on the Academy Awards the night before coming to Bradley,” said Todd Kelly, director of jazz ensembles at Bradley.
Bryan Garner, junior philosophy major and member of Jazz Ensemble, was impressed by Bergeron’s attendance at the festival.
“The fact that Bradley is bringing in names like Wayne Bergeron definitely gives the school, at least the jazz program, some clout,” Garner said.
Garner enjoyed the experience of performing with a more experienced and highly renowned musician.
“[The Jazz Festival] gives me a chance to play with someone who’s way beyond my skill level. You know the saying that you have to practice against people who are better than you to get better … you just get to learn and teach each other new things,” Garner said. “Even though I’m not better than Wayne Bergeron, he probably took something away from the music I played, and I took scores away from the music he played.”
Harland Reid, junior graphic design major and member of Bradley’s The Groove Project, had nothing but great things to say about working with Bergeron.
“Wayne casually even did ‘The Incredibles’ opening theme while warming up for the concert,” Reid said. “It was awesome.”
Bradley’s Jazz Festival aims to give these collaborating opportunities to improve and inspire young musicians, including high school students, as well as Bradley students. This year, 15 schools from around the region participated.
“I have a special affinity for the Jazz Festival,” Kelly said. “It gives
[students]
the opportunity to work with world-famous jazz artists each year. It also allows area high schools to visit our campus, to see what jazz at Bradley is all about and to interact with our great guest artists and clinicians.”
The high school students performed and attended clinics in rotations, which explains the swarms of people lugging instrument cases up and down the stairs of the student center all day starting at 8 a.m. on Feb. 26.
“It seemed like the kids really liked the clinics throughout the day, and the performances were really tight,” Reid said.
Around 750 people came to the concerts throughout the day, with around 300 in attendance at the concluding 7:30 p.m. performance featuring Bergeron.
“This was our most successful festival ever, in terms of the number of schools attending and the number of people attending the two concerts,” Kelly said. “It will be tough to top this one, but we’ll try to do exactly that next year.”
