THE largest big top in the southern hemisphere is primed to house crowds in excess of 8000 as the South East prepares to take centre stage in the jazz world.Final preparations are being made for this weekend’s Generations In Jazz (GIJ) festival, with an influx of over 5000 school children and some of the world’s top jazz musicians expected over the coming days.
With 2019 her first year in the top job, GIJ chief executive Belinda Shannon said she was excited to see the results of hard work and planning over the last 12 months.
“This has been a long time in the making so I’m really looking forward to watching it all pan out this week,” she said.
“We have got a number of casual employees working countless hours to pull this all together in addition to lovely volunteers who are vital to the project.
“We would not be anywhere without everyone’s help and the support of the whole community – we’re incredibly grateful and hope we can put on an amazing weekend for everyone.”
More than 250 volunteers will be directly involved in this year’s festival, with hundreds more opening houses, farms, community halls and sporting clubs as additional accommodation for visitors.
Hailing from Melbourne, Ms Shannon has been a life-long fan of jazz music, even attending last year’s GIJ event to see Cat Empire perform before taking on the role late last year.
Now in the full swing of things, Ms Shannon described the role as a dream job.
“I came to the event last year and loved every minute of it,” she said.
“It was only a short time later I stumbled across the role and knew it was too good to pass up.
“It’s basically a dream job for me, although it is a lot of work, it’s totally worth it to put on something as amazing as Generations.”
With more than 130 schools from Australia and New Zealand attending the event, the weekend is sure to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for those involved.
Attendees will start arriving in the Limestone Coast today with the first scholarship adjudication held tomorrow at the Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre.
On Friday students will perform at Jazz in the Park, a free event held at the Cave Gardens precinct between 11.30am and 3pm.
Ms Shannon encouraged community members to head down to the central location and take in the musical talent.
“I think it’s the perfect opportunity for those who do not usually listen to jazz music to see what it’s all about,” she said.
“There are so many sub-genres of jazz music that people do not know about and I’m sure if they gave it a chance they’d really love it.
“People should definitely head down and have a listen, the students need an audience and we want to involve the whole community in the event.
“I hope that when people experience Jazz in the Park it will encourage them to attend the rest of the weekend’s events and fall in love with jazz.”
The rest of the weekend will involve workshops for students in addition to a welcome concert Friday night, the school competition Saturday, a gala concert Saturday night and the finale concert and award ceremony on Sunday night.
The gala concert on Saturday night will see Kurt Elling, Lizz Wright, Joey DeFrancesco and James Morrison in addition to other special guests hit the stage under the big top.
Acclaimed organ jazz performer Mr Defrancesco had a few specific requirements in his rider ahead of the weekend’s event, which were luckily able to be filled by Ms Shannon.
“Joey needed some hard-to-come-by things for his performance which we were a little worried we would not be able to secure,” Ms Shannon said.
“One of the must-haves was a vintage organ and which we did not have readily available to us.
“Luckily there are vintage Hammond organ enthusiasts in the world.”
“Coincidentally, a jazz lover from Victoria happens to own one of Joey’s old organs and generously offered to bring the organ over for the weekend.
“He said he could not pass up seeing Joey play his instrument live and jumped at the chance, which we were thrilled about.”
Tickets to individual concerts along with day and weekend passes are available from ticketbooth.com.au or can be purchased on-site at the GIJ ticket office on the day of the event.
Visit generationsinjazz.com.au for full details of the weekend’s events.
