The 18th annual Clark Terry/Phi Mu Alpha Jazz Festival will be held at the Southeast Missouri State University River Campus on Friday and Saturday. Along with the festival, a gala concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

Southeast students in the jazz ensembles and more than 500 high-school and junior-high students will perform in the Donald C. Bedell Performance Hall.

The Southeast Jazz Ensemble is under the direction of Dr. Robert Conger, who coordinates the festival for the Department of Music.

Performances will take place from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Saturday. Admission to the daytime events is free.

Along with Conger and the jazz ensembles at Southeast, the Southeast chapter of Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity has played a role. Phi Mu Alpha has handled all the logistics of the event, like guiding the bands from warmup to performance to set up and tearing down before and after each group.

Some 24 different jazz ensembles from area high schools will attend the event, including the award-winning Cape Central High School.

These students will perform for three experts in the field of jazz and receive written and recorded comments as well as a live clinic session at the end of their performance. The experts are Michael Goldsmith and Dan Schunks from Mineral Area College and Greg Jones, a music department chair at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Also in attendance will be featured guest artist, trumpeter Bob Lark. He will come to Southeast from DePaul University in Chicago. Lark directs the Jazz Ensemble, the Phil Woods Ensemble and teaches jazz courses at the university. He has also recorded with some top names in the jazz world and is an exclusive Yamaha Performing Artist.

Lark will join the Studio Jazz Ensemble in the gala concert to perform songs such as “The Maids of Cadiz,” “Old School,” “Mad Dan’s” and “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

Southeast students featured in this set will be senior music performance major and president of Phi Mu Alpha Steven Watkins; junior music performance major and chair of the festival Matt Flanagan; tenor saxophone player Josh Whalen; trumpeter Jon Allgeyer; and pianist Dustin Haigler.

“I am looking forward to seeing young high-school musicians get inspired by especially our guest artist,” Flanagan said. “They are able to have clinics and work very personally with our guest artist.”

Flanagan added he first attended this festival back in 2008 as a junior-high student and later participated as a high-school student. Since coming to school at Southeast three years ago, he has become more involved with the event.

Flanagan isn’t the only student to have been involved with this event before coming to Southeast.

Watkins also spent some time at Southeast before enrolling as a student. While in high school, he was only a spectator because his school didn’t have a jazz band. Now it’s his sixth year being involved in the event.

“I’m most excited about seeing the kids being creative and learning in such a cool environment,” Watkins said.

The concert also will include the Jazz Lab Band. Some selections on the program will be “Ala Mode” and “Satin Doll.” Lark will join this ensemble to perform “Cathy’s Song” and “Reunion.”

General admission tickets to the gala concert cost $12 or $3 for students on presentation of a Southeast ID. Tickets can be purchased at the River Campus Box Office, by calling (573) 651-2265 or online at RiverCampusEvents.com.