In 2013, Harvard President Drew Faust and Wynton Marsalis authored an op-ed entitled “Faust/Marsalis: The Art of Learning”. In it they campaigned for arts education, specifically music education, and the advantages it provides our nations youth.

We need education that nurtures judgment as well as mastery, ethics and values as well as analysis. We need learning that will enable students to interpret complexity, to adapt, and to make sense of lives they never anticipated. We need a way of teaching that encourages them to develop understanding of those different from themselves, enabling constructive collaborations across national and cultural origins and identities.

In other words, we need learning that incorporates what the arts teach us.

Since the summer of 2011, Jazz Arts Initiative has been presenting the JazzArts Music Camp to a diversity of students from across the Charlotte area and beyond. The week long camp provides students the opportunity to perform together in combos, work closely with world-renowned musicians and clinicians like Delfeayo Marsalis, Christian Scott, or Jamey Aebersold, and experience exactly the type of learning Faust and Marsalis are championing.

Jazz music teaches us the respect, patience, and attentiveness that is required to participate in today’s worldwide conversation. It enables us to understand and enjoy the individuality of every person and encourages us to listen to one another with empathy.

-Wynton Marsalis

This summer JazzArts Music Camp will be June 15th-19th at UNC Charlotte Center City, a centrally located, modern and spacious facility, an ideal environment for learning. There students will receive instruction from Jazz Arts Initiative faculty that includes professors from UNCC, Davidson College, and CMS. In addition, camp attendees will enjoy instruction from this years guest clinician, John Ellis. Mr Ellis is widely recognized as one of Jazz music’s premiere tenor saxophone voices. He has performed extensively around the world for the last 20 years, and has been a sideman to artists as diverse as bass icon John Patitucci, organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Sting.

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they’ll become a great musician.

-Charlie Haden

Lonnie Davis, President and CEO of Jazz Arts Initiative, states “After the week long experience students walk away with new friends, greater motivation to be their best as a musician, and a new appreciation for America’s original art form: Jazz.” To date, close to 200 students have been served by JazzArts Music Camp. Strong corporate support from both regional and national sponsors including Belk, PNC Bank, Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation and Coca Cola help grow the program. But participation of Charlotte’s young musicians is the key.

What are your young musicians doing this summer? Enroll them in The JazzArts Music Camp, and engage with Charlotte’s cultural community. Further details including costs, audition requirements, and financial aid forms can be found on Jazz Arts Initiative’s website.

Enroll online today. See you at Camp!