Greene County High School will host the Iowa High School Music Association state jazz festival today.

Vocal Director David Heupal (hi-pull) says that Greene County High School is one of only six sites chosen by the IHSMA to host the event.  Heupal’s group, Jazzatonics will perform three selections: “Take Five”, “Killing Me Softly With His Song” with Victoria Sims and Tabitha Yoder as the featured soloists and “Knock Me A Kiss” with soloists Parker Willis, Megan Walsh, Kyle Roeder and Tabitha Yoder.  These will be the same songs that will be submitted for audition for the state vocal jazz championships in March.

There will be eight other high schools performing tonight.  In class 2A there will be two groups from West Marshall and Alta-Aurelia and one group from Nodaway Valley.  In class 3A, two groups will be from Winterset and one group each from ADM-Adel, Algona and Norwalk.  In class 4A, a group from Des Moines Hoover will perform.  Each jazz choir competes against itself for the highest possible division I rating from a panel of three judges.

After each group’s performance, they are critiqued by another judge.  Heupal states that the critiques are valuable because it happens right after the performance and sometimes the critique judge will speak with the panel to get insight into what they feel a group needs to work on.

Performances begin at 3:35pm in the high school auditorium with Greene County’s Jazzatonics to sing at 8:10pm tonight.  The public is invited to attend.