Jazz at Lincoln Center’s annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival is one of the most innovative jazz education events in the world. Each year, high school musicians from across North America travel to New York City to spend three days immersed in workshops, jam sessions, rehearsals and performances. The Competition & Festival is the culmination of the yearlong Essentially Ellington program, during which participating bands are invited to submit a recording and 15 finalists are selected through a rigorous screening process. Each finalist band receives an in-school workshop led by a professional musician before coming to New York to put up their “Dukes” and perform before Wynton Marsalis and a panel of esteemed judges. Join us to witness these talented young musicians perform the music of Duke Ellington and other seminal big band composers.