Things are changing for the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.
University of Idaho Human Resources Director Brandi Terwilliger confirmed Executive Director Steven Remington is no longer affiliated with the University of Idaho. This termination comes as College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences Dean Andrew Kersten and his staff begin to restructure the festival in preparation for 2017″s 50th anniversary festival.
He was unable to give a reason for the termination, citing employer-employee confidentiality, and said that the restructuring of the festival had no correlation with the removal of Remington.
“What happened in the jazz office is not connected to (the restructuring),” Kersten said. “It was something aside. Yet the movement of the jazz festival happened at the same time. They are separate things.”
UI President Chuck Staben confirmed that Artistic Director John Clayton will remain a university employee until his contract is up in June. It is unclear what his role will be as Kersten and the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival Advisory Board attempt to strengthen the festival.
“We”re trying to envision what that next jazz festival is and apply the staffing and resources to get that,” Kersten said.
Kersten, at Staben”s request, has moved the festival back into the Lionel Hampton School of Music”s jurisdiction.
Staben said the end goal is a strong 50th festival.
“We want a program that has physical appeal and appeals to those high school jazz band programs, etcetera,” he said. “I”m not an expert on exactly what that might constitute but I think we do have some very capable experts in our school of music who can do exactly that.”
The festival has its roots in the school of music and became a separate entity within CLASS several years ago. Now, the festival will once again be run out of the school of music, where the experts are, Staben said.
“The school of music really does a great job with music outreach into the schools,” Staben said. “They have highly qualified jazz musicians and so I think they can handle this festival very effectively.”
Kersten and his staff are working to answer questions and envision the 2017 festival.
“”What do we want to do?” is the first question,” he said. “Then, how are we going to staff that event and resource that event so it”s successful.”
Kersten is trying to refocus the festival around education in three ways.
“People in middle school and high school who are encountering jazz music will come to the university and have a singular transformative experience,” he said.
Kersten also wants to continue to engage the community with an event that showcases jazz music.
“The third part, which had kind of gone away, is include our own students at U of I into the festival,” he said. “If you look at the attendance numbers over the last several years of the number of University of Idaho students has gone down, down, down. It”s really not part of their thought process when they think of an academic year, what happens on campus.”
This is where Kersten said he needs help from music faculty, staff and students.
“Clearly we have an awareness problem, and we need to work on that,” he said.
Part of the plan to entice UI students is lowering ticket prices for the evening concerts.
“Maybe it”s $5 a ticket for an evening,” Kersten said. “I think that”s a pretty reasonable price. Most people if you jingle them upside down will come up with about $5, so I think that will be okay.”
Kersten said he also hopes to take a different approach to selecting performers for evening concerts.
“Some of the lineup even for people who like music, they may not have been a major draw,” he said. “(We”re going to) try to put major acts there that students find compelling and want to go see.”
There is no clear reason for a drop in attendance, Staben said, but he said he believes bringing back the competitive aspect of the festival could be a reason for schools and students to come back.
“We think that some of it is that students really valued that competitions that they did,” Staben said. “Artistic Director Clayton has a very different view of that from our music faculty.”
Staben said Clayton changed the festival to a non-competitive program.
“The music faculty feel that that competitive program might attract more high schools,” he said.
Trumpet professor Vern Sielert said he thinks the competitive aspect will be brought back quickly, as many directors and students have expressed a concern for clear judging criteria.
He said he thinks shifting the focus back to students will be great.
“This is how it started, in the School of Music,” he said. “Our focus is to make it be a really great experience for students. Not only participating students from other schools but U of I students, get them excited about the music. We want it to be a really great student-centered experience.”
Tess Fox can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @tesstakesphotos