Above: The middle school’s Big Band will hold its annual Evening of Jazz with special guest Summer Camargo next week. You can get a preview of the kids’ talent by listening to the radio this week. (images cropped from flyer and contributed)
Residents can again hear talented members of Southborough’s middle school jazz band on a local radio station. This time, the band will be spotlighted as Emerging Artists on both Friday and Saturday.
It’s a prelude to their annual big concert the band is hoping the community will turn out to enjoy next week — appropriately featuring a dynamic up-and-coming jazz trumpeter and composer from New York.
A week from Thursday, the Trottier Big Band will perform with returning special guest artist Summer Camargo.
A press release promotes:
The band will perform an entire evening of jazz pieces that showcase their talents and hard work this year and they are excited to welcome back special guest trumpeter and recording artist Summer Camargo. The Trottier Big Band, under the long-time direction of Jamison Clark, has been a Gold Medal Recipient from the Massachusetts Association of Jazz Educators from 2008-2019 and 2022-2026, and 10-time winners at the Clark Terry/UNH Jazz Festival.
Camargo is a member of the Saturday Night Live House Band since 2022 and is also enjoying her most recent role as a band member in Broadway’s new musical, Just in Time.. In 2023, she was featured on NPR as one of five artists under 30 “infusing new energy into today’s jazz scene”. In spring 2024 she released the album “To Whom I Love”. She followed that by playing with the Trottier Big Band that June. Soon after that, she was named one of DownBeat Magazine’s “25 for the Future”. Last year, she joined the Broadway Musical about Bobby Darin, Just in Time. (You can watch a performance with her in the background on the Late Show here.)
Camargo’s educational background includes a Masters from The Juilliard School in Jazz Studies (trumpet) in 2024. Throughout high school and college student she racked up many musical honors, including earning a Jerome Green Fellowship as a Julliard undergrad. You can read more about her here.
The concert will take place in the Trottier Middle School auditorium (49 Parkerville Road), June 11th at 7:00 pm.
Admission is free, but they will be collecting voluntary donations. This year, the funds collected (and raised through the bake sale during intermission) will be donated by the band to Wayside Youth and Family Support Services in Framingham:
Wayside offers a wide range of support services driven by the central mission “to empower children, young adults and families to achieve greater independence and emotional well-being.”
To preview the band, you can listen to WICN on 90.5 FM. The radio station has annually featured the band for years. But it sounds like their getting a special boost this year. From the band’s press release:
This year the band was honored to be chosen as 90.5 WICN Worcester Public Radio’s Featured Artist for June in their “Emerging Artist” series, which supports rising Jazz+ talent from across the greater Worcester/Central Massachusetts region. A concert recording of the band was made at Trottier by a WICN engineer, and that concert will be featured this Friday, June 5th from noon to 1 pm, and again on Saturday, June 6th from 11 am to noon. On Friday, WICN will host the band members and their parents for a listening party, and on Saturday, Jamie Clark will join program host Howard Caplan on the air during The Saturday Swing Session to talk about the band and share interview clips with the students.
If “radio” is too archaic for you, you can stream the shows via WICN.org.
