On Saturday, 23 September, the Wellington College/Wellington Girls’ College Big Band was one of just ten high school big bands in the country to make it to the finals at the Young Jazz Band-it school jazz competition. The band is made up of 17 WC members and two WGC students: Year 12 Hasini Perera and Year 11 Greer Castle.
Hasini has been playing guitar since she was ten years old and grew up watching her brother play in the WC Jazz Ensemble and the WC/WGC Concert Band. “I was able to listen to those jazzy kind of styles of music when I was younger, and that early exposure to secondary school-level music made me want to get involved during my college years.” Her passion for guitar was sparked by her childhood guitar teacher, and after they were no longer working together she expanded on the knowledge she gained from him, teaching herself various skills through self-directing learning. She started playing guitar for the big band this year and played in the concert band in 2021 and 2022. Greer joined the band as a singer this year and discovered a love for jazz that led her to audition for and join the Wellington All-Star Youth Big Band, which recently performed at the Wellington Jazz Festival. She has been studying singing since she was six years old and is also a member of Teal and Ngā Korimako.
The WC/WGC Big Band meet once a week at WC to practise and they participate in various workshops, performances, and competitions throughout the year. They travelled to both the Tauranga and Manawatu Jazz Festivals this year. In Tauranga they won best performance of a New Zealand song for their performance of Wandering Eye and received a gold award. When it came time to send in a video to audition for the Young Jazz Band-It competition they chose another performance of Wandering Eye, this time from the Manawatu Festival, and earned a place in the finals.
The band chose to play a set of four New Zealand songs for their finals performance, including Outlook for Thursday by Dave Dobbyn and Wandering Eye by Fat Freddy’s Drop. They rounded out their set list with Bird of Prayer (composed by Liam Ryan) and You Gotta Know (originally by Super Groove, arrangement by Francisco Torres). They were led by director Liam Boyle, and the entire set can be viewed here, along with the other finalists’ performances.
Hasini and Greer are both passionate advocates for Big Band and encourage anybody interested to get involved. They both point out the opportunities to travel to competitions and say that a huge bonus is getting to meet and watch other performers from all over the country. They recommend that anyone interested ask their music teacher for tips on which music and skills to practise and keep their eyes open for opportunities to form their own combos as well as to audition for the school band.