Two students from Edmonds-Woodway High School took top honors on Friday, Feb. 23 at the University of Idaho’s 2018 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.
Dominic Nye was named the High School Vocal Solo Winner (Tenor) and Unathi Machyo was named High School Vocal Winner (Soprano). The two are directed by Jake Bergevin.
Nye and Machyo were hand-selected as winners by national adjudicators after their outstanding performances earlier in the day. They then performed on stage at the Friday night evening concert, prior to the evening’s headliners Antonio Hart, Terrell Stafford and Brianna Thomas.
The students competed against another outstanding soloist for a University of Idaho scholarship presented by Avista, which was ultimately won by Nye.
This is the second year that Avista has sponsored a $1,500 scholarship for the vocal and instrumental solo winners.
The festival, in its 51st year, features two days of student competitions, workshops and clinics on the University of Idaho campus. More than 4,127 students from 141 elementary, middle and high schools, as well as college and universities, are participating from around the region, including schools from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, Canada.
“It was a wonderful day of student performances,” said Vanessa Sielert, director of the Lionel Hampton School of Music in U of I’s College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences. “The performances at the Young Artists Concert and by our soloists were truly amazing. I’m so pleased that we have so much talent to showcase.”
On Saturday, Feb. 24, two large ensembles from Edmonds-Woodway High School — the Jazz Ensemble I and Jazz Ensemble II — were named winners in the AA High School Instrumental Ensemble division. You can read more about that here.
EWHS senior Kyle Bainbridge was also a solo winner At Lionel Hampto Jazz Festival on the alto saxophone. EWHS Green combo – Kyle Bainbridge, Graeme Hafford, Stuart Harrison, Miriel McFarlane, Rodney Ocfemia and Nebeer Yohannes were the combo winners. They were invited to perform on Saturday night’s Mainstage performance.
Yes, we just posted a story about this as we got the notification from the festival at midnight. https://myedmondsnews.com/2018/02/two-edmonds-woodway-students-win-u-lionel-hampton-jazz-festival/