JazzReach Inc.’s jazz ensemble performed at the Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center Monday. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union.
JazzReach Inc.’s jazz ensemble performed at the Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center Monday. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union.
JazzReach Inc. is participating in a three-day residency this week with Warsaw Community Schools students in a multimedia education program focusing on inclusivity and diversity in the language of jazz music titled “Con Alma Y Fuego.”

On Monday, JazzReach Inc., a professional jazz ensemble group from New York, performed at the Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center. Dance instructor and PAC Director Grace Hedington said the group also does educational opportunities with jazz music, history and culture.

Monday’s performance was specifically for WCS students for an outreach program that deals with culture and inclusion on African-American/Caribbean and Latin American jazz music, she said. The group also did an after-school program clinic with the WCHS jazz ensemble Monday.

The group is going to the middle schools today and Wednesday to work with the middle school band students, she said.

Hedington coordinated  the residency with the programing director of JazzReach Inc. since late July. Hedington had to get the program approved by the WCS Curriculum Council and the Warsaw School Board and other school administration to make sure the program is was “good” to bring to students.

A lot of the program has to do with music and things like inclusion, experiences, culture and empathy.

“It hits on everything the school system is trying for us to express to the students and were founded on. So part of it was just reaching out with the mission of bringing arts, culture and experience to the students,” Hedington said.

As part of the program, JazzReach Inc. will perform at the PAC at 7:30 p.m.?Wednesday. The concert is open to the public and tickets are $5. The clinics the group is doing with students after school will be part of the program, so high schoolers will also perform during the concert Wednesday.