Jazz Ensemble 1 is the flagship of the Ball State jazz program and enjoys the reputation of being one of the best collegiate bands in the country. The band rehearses five hours per week and tours throughout the United States and around the world. Many of the ensemble members are jazz studies majors.
The band has performed at the National Theatre in Costa Rica (2019), Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland (2017), toured Poland, Prague, and Berlin (2014), as well as China (2012). Jazz 1 has received numerous awards from over 20 appearances at the Elmhurst Jazz Festival in Chicago, the Kansas City Jazz Fest, and the National Collegiate Jazz Fest in Mobile, Alabama. The band presented an invited two-set performance at Dizzy's Club in New York City in 2022 (pictured above).
Jazz 1 students are challenged on a number of different levels from sight-reading to preparing music sent by guest artists. The ensemble released its very first recording comprised of five student compositions and one faculty composition in the Fall of 2021, and will continue to do so each year. Jazz majors also produce a unique senior project which features their music and arrangements recorded in our state-of-the-art recording studios.
The jazz program brings in national and international guest artists per year to perform with the band. Some past guests have included Mike Clark, Jeff Coffin, Buddy DeFranco, Dena DeRose, John Fedchock, Wycliffe Gordon, Fareed Haque, Ingrid Jensen, Wynton Marsalis, Bria Skonberg, Grant Stewart, Byron Stripling, Allen Vizzutti, and Bobby Watson.
Rehearsal Information
Times
- Wednesday: 11 - 11:50 a.m. and 6:30 - 8 p.m.
Location
Hargreaves Music Building (MU), room 117—Jazz Room
Course Numbers
- MUSC 141, section 1A (0 credit – undergraduate)
- MUSC 341, section 1A (1 credit – undergraduate)
- MUSC 540, section 1D (1 credit – graduate)
Join the Ensemble
Audition Required
All Fall 2024 auditions will be held in person in MU 117 in the Hargreaves Music Building. Sign up now for your audition. Please email Director of Jazz Studies Mark Buselli with any questions.
- Wednesday, August 14, 2024 – saxophones (Noon to 6 p.m.)
- Thursday, August 15, 2024 – rhythm section (Noon to 6 p.m.)
- Saturday, August 17, 2024 – brass (11 a.m. – 7 p.m.)
Here are the requirements for your ensemble audition:
- Prepare something that you have been working on or have performed in the past. It could be a tune, a transcribed solo, or a piece of music in a jazz setting.
- All major scales
- Improvise over a B-flat blues
- Sight read