Registration Now Open For NJPAC’s Jazz For Teens 2024-25 Education Program

Fall Semester: Oct 5–Dec 14, 2024; Spring Semester: Jan 25-May 17, 2025, 10:00am-5:00pm EST (schedules vary).

New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), Colton Institute for Research and Training in the Arts, 24 Rector Street, Newark, NJ, 07102 (Newark Penn Station stop by Newark-bound PATH/Amtrak).

Student musicians ages 13-18.

Register: $700 per semester. $1,200 for full year. Registration is required. Scholarships and/or financial aid are available.For more information, visit NJPAC.org or call 973.353.7058.

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center the state’s anchor cultural institution, celebrates 27 years of offering thousands of high schoolers from Newark and beyond music lessons and performance experiences through its popular Jazz for Teens program. One of the first of many arts education institutions at NJPAC, it has grown into a nationally recognized and revered program producing stellar alumni such as MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Tyshawn Sorey. The 2024-25 school year is about to begin and is now accepting students for both the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters. Registration is now open and closes Sep 23.

Jazz for Teens is a comprehensive and sequential jazz education program that provides access to top-notch musical training and study with world-class working artists, opportunities for artistic exchange within the community, and college and career exploration. This school year offers a new program “Business of the Music Business” with class topics including: financial wellness and budgeting; contracting; marketing and publicity; production and more. Classes include jazz history, theory/composition, technique, ensembles, and more. Prospective college students are guided through the application process. Students are given many performance opportunities as members of the James Moody Jazz Orchestra and/or George Wein Scholars Ensemble (performing at the Newport Jazz Festival). All students record their own compositions together in a studio setting. Field trips to Rutgers University-Newark’s remarkable Institute of Jazz Studies, the largest archive of jazz-related materials in the world, are regular treats for students.

Since 2015, Jazz for Teens has been at the helm of Mark Gross, the Director of Jazz Instruction for NJPAC. A multiple GRAMMY-winning alto saxophonist and composer, Gross has performed and recorded with a roster of greats, including