Performing with the CHS Jazz Choir are (from left) Audrey Hecker, Amy Myers, Alexandria Cartmill, Leona Marquess and Harmony Goodman. Gini Davis/The Chronicle
CRESWELL – It was an elegant evening of linen-covered tables, softly glowing lights, saucy food and saucier jazz as the Creswell Music Program hosted its annual Saucy Jazz fundraiser.
The wildly popular, perennially sold-out event featured a lasagna dinner catered by Mazzi’s, a dinner-hour performance by Tonewood Trio of Eugene.
Most importantly, it showcased student groups including Creswell High School Jazz Band 1, Jazz Band 2, Jazz Choir and eight-student Jazz Combo, and the Creswell Middle School Jazz Band – all directed by Sandi Green.
Proceeds help pay for the CHS Concert Band’s trips to perform at Disneyland, CHS jazz groups’ trips to compete at the Reno and Clackamas jazz festivals, trip and uniform student scholarships – ”and hopefully, a return to state for a third year defending our state title,” said Creswell Music Boosters president, Mandy Hoggard.
With $6,322 raised in the dessert dash alone, plus proceeds from the silent auction and ticket sales and half the pot from a rousing game of Heads of Tails – which awarded the lucky winner $155 – ”our total fundraising was an incredible success,” said Hoggard, who co-emceed the evening with Lisa Ross, who provides marketing and merchandising support for the Music Boosters.
Guest pledges also raised funds to purchase 63 care kits for program-owned instruments being loaned or rented to students.
”Over the past three years we have been working especially hard as a program, with community support, to get new or refurbished instruments into the hands of our musicians,” Hoggard said. ”Now, we get to help them learn to care for them correctly.”
Hoggard also announced that a $1,500 grant from Northwest Community Credit Union – generously and quietly matched by a personal gift from CHS Principal Adam Watkins – helped purchase 17 instruments this year.
”The community support, the support of our school administrators and teachers, (students’) families and our sponsors is the only way that this program is able to fully continue to grow and be an exceptional music education program for our students; we cannot thank these people enough,” said Hoggard.
And Green’s tireless ”dedication to her students and her craft,” Hoggard added, is the foundation of it all.
”She is a wonderfully talented musician and educator, and her heart shows every time that the bands and choirs perform,” Hoggard said.
”It’s an amazing thing to teach music in such a supportive community as Creswell,” Green said.
