You are cordially invited to attend the Coronado JazzFest, held at Coronado School of the Arts in Coronado, CA, on Saturday, May 6, 2023. We are proud to continue our tradition of hosting this festival along with the San Diego State University Jazz Ensemble and the Bill Yeager Jazz Orchestra.

The festival is open to jazz ensembles of any size and instrumentation, and we encourage all to participate. As in previous years, there will be five divisions in the festival: College/Independent, Advanced High School, Intermediate High School, Novice High School, and Middle School.

There are two ways you can participate:

Option 1: Traditional Festival performance in our main theater or Black Box theater. You will be given a 25-minute time slot to perform in front of a panel of professional jazz clinicians and adjudicators. Each ensemble will perform for the first half of the time slot and spend the remainder in a clinic with the adjudicators, receiving direct feedback on their performance. You will also receive recorded and written comments from the adjudicators after your scores have been recorded.

Option 2: Our annual “Salt and Pepper Clinic” with Bill Yeager and the Bill Yeager Jazz Orchestra (BYJO). Bill is widely recognized as one of the country’s premier jazz educators and trombonists. In this clinic, the ensemble members will sit next to your students and play your charts along with them, offering each member of your band a private lesson in tone production, phrasing, articulation, and technique. At the end of the clinic, you and your students will get to hear BYJO perform your charts. This wonderful educational opportunity always fills up fast, so be sure to get your application in early. Please note that bands cannot book double time slots (e.g., 1 hour instead of 30 minutes) unless space is available closer to the event.

All participants and guests will receive free admission to the lunch hour concert with the SDSU Jazz Ensemble, one of the finest college jazz ensembles in America.

We offer online registration, and payment must be made by check, payable to CoSA Foundation. We have space for only 40 ensembles, so please register and pay as soon as possible to guarantee your group a performance time. Upon receipt of your application and payment, you will be sent a link to schedule your performance and/or Salt and Pepper clinic timeslots.

We look forward to seeing you!

Andrew Steinberg, DMA