Hall High School

Hall High School Jazz Ensembles: Pops 'n Jazz 1993, '95, '97

by Jack Bowers
July 1, 1999

The Hall High School Jazz Ensemble, which hails from West Hartford, Connecticut, didn’t win this year’s Essentially Ellington high–school Jazz band competition at Carnegie Hall — but director Haig Shahverdian’s wunderkinds placed second behind New York City’s LaGuardia High among 168 entrants (20 finalists were invited to New York), which certainly speaks well for the program (as does its third–place finish in ’97). For the last few years Shahverdian has kept his troops on a regular schedule — tour Europe ...