Applications due July 31, 2023

The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Competition will be presented on October 14-15. Open to musicians age 30 and under from across the globe, this year’s competition will shine a spotlight on the piano. At stake is more than $150,000 in scholarships and prizes, including a $50,000 first place award, $25,000 second place, and $10,000 third place.

The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Competition has played a pivotal role in identifying, empowering and promoting the next generation of jazz musicians, educators and influencers. The Institute’s Competition has launched the careers of major jazz artists including saxophonist Joshua Redman; vocalists Cécile McLorin Salvant, Jane Monheit and Jazzmeia Horn; pianist Kris Bowers; bassist Ben Williams; and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. These artists and dozens more from past Competitions have forged successful careers as performing and recording artists, as well as music educators helping to perpetuate America’s legacy of jazz.

The application for the 2023 Piano Competition can be found here. All materials must be received no later than Monday, July 31, 2023. The Competition location will be announced in the coming weeks. Please submit any questions to Leonard Brown at lebrown@hancockinstitute.org or by phone at +1 (202) 364-7272.

Prizes and scholarships will be awarded as follows:

First place – $50,000
Second place – $25,000
Third place – $10,000

Fifty percent of each prize will be paid directly to the winner. The remaining funds will be applied toward the winner’s future musical education.

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Press Inquiries: Alisse Kingsley 
akingsley@hancockinstitute.org
323.467.8508

You can submit payment for your application via PayPal or Credit Card at the link below.

In honor of the 2023 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Masters—Regina Carter, Kenny Garrett, Louis Hayes, and Sue Mingus—the NEA presents the 2023 NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert on Saturday, April 1, 2023, at 7:30 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and available through a live webcast below.

Hosted by Mark Ruffin of SiriusXM’s Real Jazz channel (67), this one-night-only concert will honor the 2023 NEA Jazz Masters, recipients of the nation’s highest honor in jazz. The concert will feature performances by honorees Regina Carter, Kenny Garrett, and Louis Hayes. Additional performers include Rudy Bird, Michael Bowie, Keith Brown, Ronald Bruner, Abraham Burton, Adam Cruz, Dezron Douglas, Kal Ferretti, Alvester Garnett, Sarah Hanahan, David Hazeltine, Corcoran Holt, Steve Nelson, Shawn Purcell, Melvis Santa, Helen Sung, Camille Thurman, and The String Queens—Dawn Michelle Johnson, Kendall Isadore, and Elise Sharp. (Performers subject to change.)

The concert will also include video tributes to the honorees, illuminating their lives and careers, as well as remarks by NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD; President of the Kennedy Center Deborah F. Rutter; honorees Regina Carter, Kenny Garrett, and Louis Hayes; and Roberto and Emma Ungaro, representing honoree Sue Mingus, who passed away in September 2022.

Tuesday, April 4, 2023 • 1:00 PM ET

Washington, DC – The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education will present a peer-to-peer jazz informance on April 4, featuring the Institute’s Peer-to-Peer Jazz Quintet. Hosted by the U.S. Department of Education, the “informance” – a combination of performance and educational information – will be presented by a group comprising gifted music students from Baltimore, New York, and Washington, DC public high schools along with internationally acclaimed jazz trumpet recording artist Terell Stafford and renowned jazz educator Dr. JB Dyas.

The informance will be held at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) headquarters building in Washington, D.C., beginning at 1 pm ET, and livestreamed at the U.S. Department of Education’s media link here, to hundreds of school districts in the United States and around the world. The focus will be on raising the bar of music education in our public schools nationwide. Raising the bar in all areas of public school education, arts and academics alike, is the primary mission of U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and the Department.

Besides playing jazz at a level that belies their years, the students will talk to their like-age audience across the country and around the world not only about jazz – America’s indigenous musical art form – and its significance in American history and culture, but also about the importance of finding a passion for something early in life, working hard at it, being persistent, and believing in yourself. When young people hear this important message from kids their same age, they are often more likely to listen.

“We’ve found that young people often learn about certain things better from kids their same age, and one of those is jazz,” said Herbie Hancock, Chairman of the Institute, NEA Jazz Master, and Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “And when you hear how accomplished these musicians are at such a young age, you know their peers are going to listen.”

The members of the Quintet include alto saxophonist Quinn Rehkemper and drummer Julian Frazier from the Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA); tenor saxophonist Seif Gharsellaoui from the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York, and pianist Jose Andre Montano from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC. Rounding out the quintet will be BSA’s director of jazz studies, Ed Hrybyk on bass.

“What an incredible learning experience it is to perform with Mr. Stafford,” said Rehkemper, who performed at last year’s ED jazz informance with jazz great Sean Jones. “Preparing the music of these two jazz masters, not to mention the prestigious opportunity to perform once again at the US Department of Education to highlight the multifaceted value of music education in our public schools, is incredibly educational and gratifying.”

In addition to learning how to read music and play an instrument, studying jazz also teaches students how music works in order to improvise and express their own unique thoughts and feelings musically. The study of jazz also teaches the life skills and deeply held American values that jazz represents: teamwork, unity, the correlation of hard work and goal accomplishment, persistence & perseverance, democracy, and the vital importance of really listening to one another.

“Music is a big part of my family’s life,” Secretary Cardona said in regards to last year’s informance, “There’s a level of listening, interdependence and collaboration that goes on in jazz that we can all learn from.”

While the informance in the auditorium at the US Department of Education can only accommodate a limited, invited audience of selected students, teachers, principals, and ED officials, it will be streamed nationally and internationally so all may partake.

“Jazz mirrors life in improvisation and in connecting with people around you,” added the Secretary. “Music and the arts give us a window into different cultures – and cultures are an expression of many kinds of music. It’s been said that music is the art that goes from the ears straight to the heart.”

The Herbie Hancock Institute’s National Peer-to-Peer Education Program has lead funding from the National Endowment of the Arts and United Airlines.

Download the full press release here.

Wayne Shorter was a member of the Institute family for over 30 years, serving as a member of the Board of Trustees, Competition Judge, and teacher and mentor to our college students and other young artists in our programs. Wayne participated each year in International Jazz Day and was deeply committed to its mission of uniting people around the world through the power of jazz.  He was a giant in the music and we are forever grateful for his friendship and the generous sharing of his vast knowledge and wisdom with all of us. 

Visionary composer, saxophonist, visual artist, devout Buddhist, devoted husband, father and grandfather Wayne Shorter has embarked on a new journey as part of his extraordinary life – departing the earth as we know it in search of an abundance of new challenges and creative possibilities.  Always inquisitive and constantly exploring – ever the fearless and passionate innovator – Shorter was 89 years young and had just won his 13th Grammy Award in February.  A gentle spirit, sci-fi and cartoon enthusiast, his long realized Opera “…Iphigenia,” that he created with collaborator esperanza spalding (and featuring sets by Frank Gehry) played to widespread critical acclaim across the country in 2021.  Shorter was surrounded by his loving family at the time of his transition and is survived by his devoted wife Carolina, daughters Miyako and Mariana, and newly-born grandson, Max.  Most recently Wayne had been contemplating his next project, a Jazz ballet.   

“Generally acknowledged to be jazz’s greatest living composer” (The New York Times), Wayne Shorter has left an indelible mark on the development of music for the last half-century. He first rose to prominence in the late 1950s as the primary composer for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Shorter next joined the Miles Davis Quintet, becoming what that bandleader referred to as the ensemble’s “intellectual musical catalyst” before co-founding the pioneering group Weather Report. Since 2001, he has led his own highly acclaimed quartet.

Said Herbie Hancock, Shorter’s closest friend for more than six decades, “Wayne Shorter, my best friend, left us with courage in his heart, love and compassion for all, and a seeking spirit for the eternal future. He was ready for his rebirth. As it is with every human being, he is irreplaceable and was able to reach the pinnacle of excellence as a saxophonist, composer, orchestrator, and recently, composer of the masterful opera ‘…Iphigenia’. I miss being around him and his special Wayne-isms but I carry his spirit within my heart always.” 

Shorter’s works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Lyon Symphony, National Polish Radio Symphonic Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonic, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Acclaimed artists and ensembles including Renée Fleming and the Imani Winds have also performed his works. He has received commissions from the National, St. Louis, and Nashville symphony orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the La Jolla Music Society. In all, Shorter has realized over 200 compositions, and dozens of these works have become modern standards.  His many accolades include 13 Grammy Awards and a 2018 Kennedy Center Honor.

From May 9-22, the Institute resumed its in-person Peer-to-Peer jazz education tours after two years of virtual programming due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With support from the National Endowment for the Arts and United Airlines, exceptionally talented student musicians from the Institute’s high school programs visited public middle and high schools in Delaware and Wisconsin for intensive performances, rehearsals and master classes–continuing the jazz tradition of intergenerational mentorship.

The Peer-to-Peer program brings some of the nation’s most talented student jazz musicians into under-resourced public schools across America. The student mentors lead live performances and demonstrations of key jazz concepts, discussions on the history and cultural significance of jazz, and inspiring rehearsals and workshops with the host schools’ jazz bands and choral groups. The Institute conceived this initiative around the simple but powerful concept that students are often more receptive and learn more effectively when their “teachers” are young people their own age. Since launching in 2006, Institute Peer-to-Peer tours have directly impacted more than 250,000 students. With the recent addition of Delaware and Wisconsin, the program has visited schools in 42 U.S. states.

Students from Coast-to-Coast

Over the course of the two weeklong tours, students selected from the Institute’s National Performing Arts High Schools programs in Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. performed and taught alongside renowned trumpeter and Peabody Institute professor Sean Jones, acclaimed Kansas City vocalist Lisa Henry and GRAMMY Award-winning saxophonist Bobby Watson at schools in Dover and Wilmington, DE and Milwaukee, WI. The members of the Institute’s National Peer-to-Peer Jazz Quintet for the Delaware tour included trumpeter Loren Littlejohn (18) from Dallas; tenor saxophonist Leo Milano (17) from Chicago; pianist José André Montaño (16) from Washington, DC; bassist Camara Dupree (16) from New Orleans; and drummer Matthew Fu (18) from Houston. For the Wisconsin tour, the Quintet consisted of Ebban Dorsey (17) from Baltimore; trombonist Melvin Nimtz (18) from New Orleans; pianist Nathan Tatsuta (15) from Santa Ana, CA; bassist Jack Rota (18) from Dallas; and drummer JJ Mazza (17) from Denver.

Each school visit included an assembly program for the entire student body, followed by in-depth peer-to-peer instruction with students in the school’s music program. The interactive presentations included opportunities for student musicians from each host school to showcase their skills alongside the Institute band.

Building Bridges, Through Music

After an unprecedented two years of life spent adapting to the pandemic, the in-person tours brought a sorely needed human connection back to the target schools. Wrote one school district official, the Institute’s visits “have fundamentally helped all of us remember the value of being together, the importance of community, and the magic of music.”

Another district superintendent commented, “Our students, staff and community walked away with a deeper understanding of how jazz has contributed to our history in the United States. The performance created a catalyst that built bridges across generations, race, gender orientation and religion…this experience has expanded our students’ interest in jazz as a genre.”

A Taste of Things to Come

At the end of each exhilarating week spent sharing their love of jazz with children their own age, the Institute students were eager to carry on with another hallowed tradition of the Peer-to-Peer program–the gig. Both tours concluded with evening performances by the Institute’s National Peer-to-Peer Jazz Quintet at top jazz clubs. In Milwaukee, the Peer-to-Peer Quintet impressed local audiences with two performances at the city’s newest live jazz venue, Bar Centro. The Delaware group capped off its week with a pair of sets at iconic Baltimore jazz club Keystone Korner, which has hosted jazz legends like Ron Carter, Joey DeFrancesco, Kenny Garrett and Dee Dee Bridgewater. The Institute players got an authentic taste of the demands of working as professional musicians as they performed challenging arrangements of jazz standards, original works by the accompanying jazz masters, and their own compositions.

Lisa Henry, who has participated in Institute Peer-to-Peer tours since their inception, captured the formative nature of the touring experience as she counted off the students’ set at Keystone Korner. “It never ceases to amaze me,” she remarked, “how special it is to watch young musicians–young artists–at the very beginning of their take-off. What you’re witnessing here is something very special.”

The Institute completed its first international tour since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with jazz legend and Institute Chairman Herbie Hancock joining acclaimed saxophonist Don Braden and the eight students of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA for a week of teaching, learning and cultural exchange in the Kingdom of Jordan. Sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the May program continued the Institute’s commitment to using jazz to advance diplomacy, dialogue between cultures and mutual understanding.

Over the course of five days, the Institute delegation visited prominent educational, performing arts and community service organizations in and around the Jordanian capital, Amman, offering free concerts and master classes for local students and jazz lovers. Complementing the extensive outreach programs were visits to the vaunted 5^th-century BC city of Petra, as well as outdoor concerts at the ancient ruins of Gadara in Umm Qais and the Odeon, a Roman amphitheater situated in the heart of downtown Amman.

A Focus on Education

As part of the tour’s educational offerings, young Jordanians aspiring to careers in music gathered at the King Hussein Foundation’s National Centre for Culture and Arts (NCCA) for an informance, concert and jam session with the Institute band. Led by Braden, the Institute of Jazz Performance students gave musical demonstrations of every major stylistic touchpoint in jazz, from ragtime to present day. To represent the fusion era, the group invited Hancock up for a performance of his landmark composition “Actual Proof.” Later, Institute of Jazz Performance clarinetist Matthew Stubbs led a demonstration of the connections between Western classical music and jazz.

The intensive session gave the assembled Jordanian musicians an invaluable opportunity to listen to and learn from world-class jazz artists in an intimate setting, and to share their own talents and musical perspectives. To close the educational program, more than a dozen music students and faculty from the NCCA and Jordan’s National Music Conservatory gave a special performance fusing traditional Jordanian music with contemporary improvisational forms. The entire group then convened for a spirited jam session, demonstrating that when it comes to jazz music, no translation is required.

Musical Relief

Perhaps the most moving moment of the trip came in the northern city of Jerash, where the Institute delegation gathered to perform for a group of Syrian refugee students at the Princess Taghrid Institute for Development and Training. Established by Jordan’s King Abdullah and led by Princess Taghrid Mohammad, the Princess Taghrid Institute provides lodging, education and psychological support to orphaned and abandoned youth, including those displaced by the ongoing war in Syria, which has led to an influx of more than 1 million refugees over the border into Jordan. The musicians’ interactive presentation included the performance of jazz standards and original compositions, a basic introduction to the history and significance of jazz music, and an instrument “petting zoo” for the youngsters, many of whom had never had opportunities to hold musical instruments in their hands.

Memorable Performances

With the blessing of Jordan’s Department of Antiquities, Hancock, Braden and the Institute students also brought the contemporary sounds of jazz into some of the Kingdom’s storied archaeological sites. At Umm Qais, against the iconic backdrop of the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights, the group gave an hourlong concert for Jordanian officials and guests, showcasing a range of original compositions and inventive takes on some of Hancock’s classic tunes. At the final concert at the Odeon, the multigenerational band illuminated the millennia-old amphitheater with songs blurring the lines between jazz, blues and local traditional music, including an Arabic maqam-inflected performance of “Autumn Leaves” featuring renowned Jordanian vocalist Macadi Nahhas.

The Jordan tour proved an apt addition to the long tradition of U.S. State Department-led cultural diplomacy abroad, following in the footsteps of the famed Jazz Ambassadors program from the 1950s. As one American diplomat remarked of the Institute’s visit, “It’s remarkable and wonderful that here we are, almost 70 years after [the Jazz Ambassadors] program began, still connecting with each other through the beauty and inclusiveness of jazz music. That is the power of this art form.”

Special thanks to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the U.S. Embassy in Jordan for sponsoring this program.

Air transportation for the May 2022 Jordan tour was provided by United Airlines, the official airline of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz.

Amman, Jordan – The U.S. Embassy in Jordan announces the arrival of jazz legend Herbie Hancock, the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Ensemble at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and guest Don Braden for a series of musical performances and workshops across Jordan.  The musical tour celebrates U.S.-Jordanian cultural ties through arts and music.  It is sponsored by the Arts Envoy Program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and developed in partnership with the Jordan Ministry of Tourism, Department of Antiquities, National Music Conservatory, National Center for the Culture and Arts, the University of Jordan, King Hussein Foundation, and Princess Taghreed Institute. 

Chargé d’Affaires Mike Hankey welcomed the musical tour, emphasizing its importance to diplomacy: “The language of great art needs no translation because it speaks to all of us.  And diplomats and political leaders have much to learn from the collaboration inherent in jazz.  Herbie Hancock has spent decades bringing together audiences around the world through his music.”  Hankey highlighted the long tradition of American jazz ambassadors, recalling the 1963 visit by jazz great Duke Ellington in Amman at the Roman Theater as part of a global tour supported by the U.S. Department of State.  Hancock expressed his delight to perform in Jordan, noting that while jazz originated in the United States, it now belongs to the entire world.  He added, “In addition to its artistic significance, jazz actually is a music that promotes peace, freedom, and democratic values. It is an art form with real applications to our world today.” 

Herbie Hancock is a 14-time GRAMMY Award winner and Academy Award winner, and internationally renowned pianist and composer who has been an integral part of every jazz movement since the 1960s.  In 2007, he won the GRAMMY for Album of the Year, becoming the first jazz musician to receive this honor in 44 years.  Hancock was designated a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue in 2011 in light of his profound dedication to the promotion of peace through dialogue, culture and the arts. He also serves as Chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz and Professor of Music at the University of California Los Angeles.  Hancock has performed for the U.S. Department of State in Morocco, Egypt, and India, and many other places around the world.  The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz is a nonprofit education organization with a mission to offer the world’s most promising young musicians college level training by internationally acclaimed jazz masters and to present public school music education programs for young people around the world. 

Hancock’s itinerary in Jordan includes performances in Irbid, Jerash, and Amman, and engagement with Jordanian artists and youth.  Audiences will include students at the University of Jordan and the National Center for Culture and Arts, and attendees at prominent archeological sites and community service institutes.  The tour continues the extensive engagement by the U.S. Embassy in Jordan and the U.S. Department of State focused on strengthening U.S.-Jordanian cultural ties through music, arts, cultural heritage, community programs, and exchanges.  Air transportation for the tour was provided by United Airlines, the official airline of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz. 

The Institute’s recent jazz informance at the U.S. Department of Education displayed all the hallmarks that have made the annual event a favorite for Department colleagues and DC and Baltimore public school students and teachers alike. These included a superb high school student group–the Institute’s Peer-to-Peer Jazz Quintet, a renowned guest artist–internationally acclaimed trumpeter Sean Jones­–and the pedagogical prowess of jazz educator and Institute Vice President of Education and Curriculum Development Dr. JB Dyas. This year, the presentation featured one other notable element: the participation of U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona, who traded his customary speaker’s podium for a pair of bongos and joined in on lively renditions of Herbie Hancock’s compositions “Chameleon” and “Watermelon Man.”

Back in the Groove

The April 19 jazz informance brought audiences back into the Department of Education building after two years of virtual presentations due to the pandemic. The excitement in the auditorium was palpable as dozens of Department of Education officials, students and educators–including 2021 National Teacher of the Year Juliana Urtubey–took their seats. In parallel, students in hundreds of school districts across the United States and music lovers around the world had the opportunity to watch the afternoon program via livestream on the Department of Education’s YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“Jazz is the Great Equalizer”

In just over 90 minutes, students from the Institute’s Jazz in the Classroom programs in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., led by Dr. JB Dyas, demonstrated the roots and rhythms of jazz through a dynamic series of performances and presentations. The session included explanations of jazz history, performance practices, and the music’s role in promoting equality and mutual understanding among people with vastly different backgrounds.

The student Quintet, made up of pupils from the Institute’s Jazz in the Classroom and National Performing Arts High Schools jazz programs, included alto saxophonists Ebban Dorsey and Quinn Rehkemper from the Baltimore School for the Arts; tenor saxophonist Elijah Woodward and pianist José André Montaño from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts; and drummer Jillian Upshaw from Jackson Reed High School. Leading the performances was renowned jazz trumpeter and Peabody Institute professor Sean Jones.

In his remarks before taking to the bandstand with the Institute group, Secretary Cardona emphasized the centrality of students in the Department of Education’s activities. “You give us purpose,” he declared to the assembled young musicians. “We can’t thank you enough for brightening our lives with your talent–each of you is an inspiration.” The Secretary also touched on the valuable practical lessons jazz offers, noting that “jazz can teach us about ourselves, and how to overcome adversity. Watching a live jazz performance is a lesson in leadership–listening and collaborating, improvising and improving, recognizing and reimagining…it’s nothing short of enlightening.”

Watch the complete jazz informance below, including Secretary Cardona’s performance: