Happy Anniversary, Sisters in Jazz!
2008 is our 11th anniversary year. Our family has grown!

Sisters in Jazz on YouTube
The 2007 IAJE Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Quintet (Chelsea Baratz, tenor saxophone; Sharel Cassity, alto saxophone; Vanessa McGowan, bass; Mika Nishimura, piano; and Tina Raymond, drums) performed at the Costa Rica International Jazz Festival. 2007. Watch a video excerpt of their performance.

2007 Sisters in Jazz at the Kennedy Center
The 2007 IAJE Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Quintet performed, mentored, and were mentored by some of the best women in the business at the 12th Annual Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C. Activities included two live broadcast performances on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, and other educational activities. Watch a video of their performance.

DIVA-NYSMF scholarship for high school and college instrumentalists
In December 2006, DIVA Jazz Orchestra leader and Sisters in Jazz mentor Sherrie Maricle announced a new DIVA–NYSMF Scholarship for young women pursuing a career in jazz performance. The scholarship is open to all women instrumentalists who will be entering their senior year of high school or freshman year of college. The winner will be awarded free tuition, room and board to attend a 2 week session of The New York Summer Music Festival (NYSMF) in Oneonta, New York. NYSMF is a six week summer program that offers comprehensive musical instruction and performance opportunities for all musical disciplines. Contact NYSMF for more information.

Michigan Mentoring Pilot Program - Marion Hayden, Diana Spradling, Sunny Wilkinson

Look around you. How many young women are playing in your university big band or combo program? What is the ratio of men to women? Take a look at flourishing grade school and middle school music programs. Young women are not only playing in great numbers, they are sitting first chair and clearly interested in music. What happens in a young woman's life to discourage her from continuing? More >>

Collegiate Competition: A Retrospective - J.B. Dyas, Greg Carroll, Sunny Wilkinson

In an effort to support and promote more female involvement in jazz education, IAJE's Sisters in Jazz (with the support of Lowell Shoe, Inc.), presented the first annual SIJ Collegiate Competition, culminating in a most successful, musical, and creative concert at the 25th Annual International Association of Jazz Educators conference at the Marriott Marquis, New York, January 9, 1998. More >>

Sisters in Jazz - Anna Ghallo

"Why would you go through all that trouble?” Those were the words of my old professor in Croatia, a respected jazz guitarist who supported my singing efforts, but looked skeptically upon my wish to develop as a composer and pianist in London. I was thirsty for challenges and ready to study abroad, to further my improvisation skills. Professor Bubanovic thought I should just be happy with a blossoming singing career. More >>

Sisters in Jazz and Beyond: Through Mentorship, Musicianship and Mobility - Katharine (Katchie) Cartwright

Beginning in 1995, Marion Hayden, Diana Spradling, and Sunny Wilkinson, three musician-educators from Michigan, took stock of the ratio of men to women in our university big bands and jazz combos, then asked us to do the same: "Take a look at flourishing grade school and middle school music programs. Young women are not only playing in great numbers, they are sitting first chair and clearly interested in music. What happens in a young woman's life to discourage her from continuing?"

A 1998/99 survey showed women students to represent a paltry 3% of all students in U.S. college and university jazz ensembles.2 Why is this (still) so? As with many things in life and music, the reasons are myriad and entwined. They involve early assignment of instruments by gender (girls on flute and voice, boys on trumpet and saxophone); institutionalized educational inequities based on instrument (division of programs into "vocal jazz" and "instrumental jazz" areas, with generally less-rigorous improvisational training in the former); a dearth of women as role models among senior jazz faculty (heads of jazz departments); and various other processes that are so common as to have become routine. What can we do to turn things around? More >>

Trumpet Player Ready for Trip Across the Pond - Annie Tasker

Sometimes you have to speak Finnish to play the trumpet. And IU's Jackie Coleman doesn't have long to learn how to ask for the bathroom. She's headed to Finland's Pori Jazz Festival Tuesday with Sisters in Jazz Collegiate All-Stars as one of three horn players. She's excited. "It'll be my first time out of the country," she says. More >>

Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Festival - Larry Appelbaum

...The IAJE Sisters in Jazz Collegiate All-Stars performed two free shows on the Kennedy Center‘s Millennium Stage. The program serves as a mentoring program for young women in jazz, and this years crop, with Delandria Mills, Lakecia Benjamin, Jacquelyn Coleman, Carmen Staaf, Maeve Royce and Hanne Pulli may be young in years but on tunes like “Red Clay,” Yes & No” and “Firm Roots” they sound like seasoned veterans. More >>

Sisters in Jazz annual news and updates
If you are a Sisters in Jazz competition alumna, guest director, apprentice, or mentor, send your annual news highlights and web links to katch@katchie.com. Use "SISTERS IN JAZZ NEWS HIGHLIGHTS" as your subject heading. To update your annual news highlights by letting us know about current events, please join the Sisters in Jazz community, then add the bulletin board to your gig announcement list: sistersinjazz@yahoogroups.com.

Jazz Alliance International mentorship for "newborn" Sisters and alumnae
Sisters in Jazz Advisory group member Suzan Jenkins coordinates the Jazz Alliance International (JAI) Sisters in Jazz Mentorship Program for collegiate competition winners. Contact Suzan for more information.

Perspectives from a Canadian Sister in Jazz - Becky Noble

Just what does it mean to be a "Sister in Jazz," anyway? Any of you women out there reading this who are studying or have studied jazz in school will be the first to know that this is not something covered in jazz theory or history class! But having been exposed to and immersed in the jazz tradition largely surrounded by men, I was and am well aware of the pros and cons that go along with being a "sister" (and particularly a horn-playing sister) trying to forge forward in the jazz world. More >>

Missing link?
Please contact us with links to additional online articles about Sisters in Jazz.

Join the Sisters in Jazz community
Join us and share your news and views on the Sisters in Jazz community bulletin board.

Questions about IAJE Sisters in Jazz?
Feel free to contact us with your questions about the program. Contact IAJE Resource Team / Special Interest / Sisters in Jazz.

IAJE Sisters in Jazz mission

Founded on the idea of women helping women to achieve success in a profession still dominated by men, the mission of the IAJE Sisters in Jazz program is to encourage and promote the participation of young women in the art of jazz, both educationally and professionally, through a mentoring program linking them with established women musicians. More >>

Why Sisters In Jazz? - Ron McCurdy

I have just returned from nearly three weeks in Europe attending a series of jazz festivals that provided an opportunity for the IAJE Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Sextet, sponsored by BET on Jazz, to perform at Jazz Fest Wien (Vienna, Austria); Jazz A Vienne (Vienne, France); Istanbul Jazz Festival (Istanbul, Turkey); North Sea Jazz Festival (The Hague, Netherlands); Vitoria Jazz Festival (Vitoria, Spain); and the Pori Jazz Festival (Pori, Finland). Why do we have a program called the Sisters in Jazz? Is it really necessary? More >>

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