This week, 15 high school jazz bands will travel to Bemidji on Friday and Saturday to participate in BSU’s annual JazzFest.

Each jazz band attending will have opportunity to perform for 20 to 25 minutes, and then spend another 20 to 25 minutes receiving comments from a guest artist.

“It’s a chance for them to perform, it’s a chance for them to get criticism of their performance and hopefully learn from that,” said Del Lyren, BSU professor of music.

The two guest artists are going to be Chris Vadala, professor at University of Maryland, and Rex Richardson, a Yamaha performing artist.

“Chris Vadala, he’s a saxophone guy but plays all the woodwinds really well,” Lyren said. “And Rex Richardson, I’ve known a long time. He’s a trumpet player and a friend of mine. I’ve been wanting to bring him up because he’s really a great educator and player.”

Students who attend JazzFest benefit in several different ways from the experience.

“What I find that is really important is that if we can reinforce what their teachers — high school band teachers and college teachers — are already doing, then the students say, ‘Wow, this must be the way to do it because somebody else said the same thing,’” Vadala said.

Everyone involved from the high school and college musicians to the guest artists and organizations benefit from the time spent at the festival.

“It is a privilege to give back to the community of young musicians, given all that I received when I was a kid. It’s also just a pleasure to hang out with and make music with great people like Del and Chris,” Richardson said in an email interview.

Besides acting in the guest musician role, both Vadala and Richardson will perform in two concerts while in Bemidji.

“It’s mostly an educational venture, the performance for us, is kind of the icing on the cake. That’s the bonus for us to be able to get our horns out and perform,” Vadala said.

On Friday night, the pair will perform with the Bemidji Jazz Quartet in a concert in the Main Theatre in Bangsberg Hall on the BSU campus.

On Saturday night, Vadala and Richardson will perform with Blue Ice, the BSU Jazz Band, in the Beaux Arts Ballroom on the BSU campus.

Tickets for both concerts are available in the Department of Music and are $10 for adults, $5 for students and free all BSU and Northwest Technical College students.

The second concert was moved to the ballroom to allow for a bigger audience.

“Two weeks, we had already sold 275 tickets and we only have 261 seats (in the Main Theater) so I moved it to the Beaux ballroom,” Lyren said, “There is a part of the community that is really loyal to jazz and loves it. There’s also a great group of BSU supporters and music in general that like to come out to almost all of our concerts.”