Aspen Trip for Youth Jazz Winner

A fund set aside by the Queenstown Lakes District Council to enable youth exchange with Queenstown’s Sister City Aspen will assist two more young musicians to head to America, ASB JazzFest festival director Harvey Maguire said.

“This has been a major boost for this competition, which will be presented to the young winner of the solo section of the Jumpstart contest at the ASB JazzFest in October this year,” Mr Maguire said.

Last year’s winner Sam Healy was scheduled to head to Aspen in August to attend a Jazz festival.

“We are really delighted to be able to extend this fantastic opportunity for a further two years,” QLDC arts and events facilitator Jan Maxwell said.

The winner will be hosted by the Aspen Jazz community and would have the opportunity to lap-up famous American jazz artists.

“We hope that we can, in return, host some young American jazz musicians at Queenstown during our festival in October,” Mrs Maxwell said.

The exchange opportunity was a major step that would help provide further incentives to young jazz musicians to achieve and develop new skills and improve their musicianship.

In addition to the youth exchange news, Mr Maguire said he was very pleased to announce that AJ Hackett Bungy Limited had once again agreed to come on board as the main sponsor for the Jumpstart youth jazz competition.

“We are thrilled to have AJ Hackett sponsor this event in 2008,” Mr Maguire said.

The 2008 festival will take place from 18-27 October 2008.