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On November 28th, AISG’s Jazz Band went to Hong Kong to attend Hong Kong International School’s International Jazz Festival. On the trip, the Jazz band had a great time learning and playing Jazz. Many returning Jazz band musicians not only reunited with old friends but also made some new friends. For many of us, it was one of the best trips ever. Sadly, for the seniors, it was their last trip.
The trip began on Friday. The Jazz band came to Mr.Bott’s room to do some last minute practice. The Jazz Band prepared 2 songs: “Count Bubba’s Revenge” and “Chili Pepper 101”. After an hour of intense practice, we felt very ready and headed straight for Hong Kong. “I feel like we are going to be fine because we all put in our hard work and tried our best, I think it will be a spectacular performance.” said Jerry Julius as we left the band room and headed to the bus.
The bus ride to Hong Kong was over 4 hours long. For many of us, it was way too long, but since we had our entire band on the bus, killing time was not a problem. There were people talking, sleeping, singing and laughing. The bus to Hong Kong was almost like a vacation for many of us.
4 hours later, we arrived at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Hong Kong. At the hotel lobby, we were paired up with our roommates then sent to our rooms. Shortly after, we headed off to dinner, then did some shopping for the musicians to bring back some souvenirs. During the shopping time, the Jazz Band’s Trumpeter Hikaru Kiyomoto said, “Hong Kong is amazing! I bought this beautiful scarf and this hat.”
Next day, the Jazz Band headed to HKIS where they were introduced to the clinicians, who would be conducting and teaching them throughout the day. Some of the clinicians are returning and some are new. When the clinicians were introduced, our Bari Sax player Peter Lee screamed to his favorite clinician, “Oh my god Jimmy!” As we laughed at Peter’s joyous outburst, we started heading to our separate classes.
The schedule for us included a music history class, a master class with one of the clinicians, a master class on improvisation, another master class with the whole band and finally, our performance at the evening.
According to Paraash Manwani, “The classes this year are much better, not just because I feel like I have improved a lot, but also because that it’s the same teacher from last year and he still remembered me.” And as for the new members of the Jazz Band, Stanley, he said that, “This is much better than I thought. The history class was a little boring, but the master class was so intense. Even though I can barely keep up, but I still had a lot of fun and made some new friends.”
Soon, a whole day of practice passed by and the musicians were ready. They headed to the blackbox building where we performed our songs. According to one of the newest member of the Jazz band Jim, “I have performed many times, but somehow I have never felt so nervous.” and as for Paraash, he said, “This is my last performance at the Hong Kong International Jazz Festival. I have so many mixed feelings right now. I don’t care if we do well or not, I am just hoping that we all have fun and that I don’t mess up my solo.”
After our performance, we proudly walked off the stage and enjoyed the rest of the night. Even though our performance wasn’t perfect, we all had an amazing time in the end. No one blamed each other for any mistakes and no one was frowning. We were all smiling at how well we did and how great Jazz Band really is. As we headed to our bus, many of us were reluctant to leave this amazing city and this amazing event.
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