Sarah Roberts: Empowering young musicians at UT Tyler Jazz Camp

Mike Landess: This week, UT Tyler’s first percussion camp and second brass camp are buzzing along, and Jazz Camp is near and dear to your heart.

Mike Landess: Tell us about that.

Sarah Roberts: Well, Jazz Camp started with a little idea and a proposal to the UT Tyler Education Department to help fund our vision in 2018. We started with 12 campers, and we have grown every year. We feature a guest artist every year as well, so we’ve brought in some really fantastic artists, and our students have a wonderful time learning jazz. They take jazz classes and improvisation classes, and they play in ensembles, and it is just an awesome week that we love.

Mike Landess: You were there for year one. What kinds of things have changed over the years?

Sarah Roberts: Well, definitely the fact that we have more students, so we’re able to have larger ensembles and more ensembles, which is great. We also have added more faculty, which has been great as well. So not only are the students studying with UT Tyler faculty, but also some local musicians who are really talented as well. And then we have added some different concert opportunities as well. So one of the things we started a couple of years ago was a community jazz jam. That happens on the Wednesday of camp, and so we go to True Vine, and all of the campers jam, all of the faculty jams and any community members who want to sit in as well. It’s just kind of a really fun jazz party.

Mike Landess: Now UT Tyler Radio sponsored Jazz Camp for the first time last year. It was a terrific experience for us. Again, you see the campers perform and then later the faculty concerts you were talking about. Tell us about your guest artist this year.

Sarah Roberts: Sure. So I have known Sergio since I was in grad school. Sergio and I went to UNT (University of North Texas) together.

Mike Landess: That’s Sergio…

Mike Landess: And he is from Spain?

Sarah Roberts: He is originally from Spain, and he moved to the United States to study jazz at North Texas, and that’s when I met him. And we actually traveled to Shanghai together with a group from UNT to perform and teach jazz, and he is a wonderful, wonderful human being and player. I’m so excited to bring him down. He is a Grammy-nominated jazz pianist who currently is on the faculty at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. And he writes his own music, so on his faculty concert, he will be performing all of his own original music with our jazz faculty. He has some things for solo piano, some things for his own trio: piano, bass and drums, and then some things that include instruments as well. So, it’s going to be fantastic to have him on campus.

Mike Landess: Tell me about engaging students in this. I mean, obviously, if you have a student who’s studying music, there are a variety of different elements that they would be interested in. But in terms of young people, let’s say in the high school age, if they’re in, say marching band or something like that, they’ve got to start in music. Whether it’s– they’re not playing piano in a marching band, that would be very difficult–but we heard that from our percussion guy who was telling us that they moved him to xylophone and marimba.

Sarah Roberts: Right exactly, exactly.

Mike Landess: But in any case, the point being that, how do you go about engaging? What is it that the kids tell you that got them interested and made them want to pursue this?

Sarah Roberts: Sure. So sometimes it’s a family connection. They had a parent or a grandparent or, you know, older sibling play. Sometimes it was they just were in a great program and got the bug early. Or sometimes it’s an experience like camp, you know, for jazz camp especially. You know, jazz isn’t something that’s typically taught during the school day, so most jazz programs happen before or after school, if they happen at all. So it’s not part of the curriculum when a student is signed up for band And so, students have to seek out those opportunities to learn jazz.

And I’m just so excited that we can offer this jazz camp that is truly unique in East Texas. There are no jazz camps in East Texas. The closest one you have to drive to Dallas to find, and you know, we’ve had repeat students coming to this camp because they’re either learning something that they don’t learn in school, or they’re learning something that you know, there’s a lot of improvisation to jazz. There’s a lot of just kind of nuanced things.

You know you can think of music as a language, right? And let’s say we’re all speaking the same language, but somebody from Texas is going to say it a little bit different than someone from New York. Well, it’s kind of jazz and music, right, it’s the same language, but we’re going to speak it a little differently. And so, we have a lot of students who will come to jazz camp, and then they’ll, you know, go back to their school and be better prepared and be able to help more students understand jazz. And you know, I’ve seen students start their own groups, their own combos, and then that combo will then come back to jazz camp. So it’s a really great opportunity for, you know, students to just pursue something that they might not otherwise have the opportunity.

Mike Landess: In your sixth year now, certainly you’ve got some, at least one, really great success story you could share.

Sarah Roberts: You’re right, there have been so many success stories. One in particular that I’m thinking of is a student who has been at Jazz Camp almost since the beginning. He wasn’t quite old enough; I think he might have come to our second Jazz Camp, and he has come every year. He also, during the year, joined my youth jazz group through ETYO (East Texas Youth Orchestra) and now he is going to enter UT Tyler as a music student, as a freshman this year. He has a scholarship. He won a concerto competition through ETYO this year. He almost made all-state. I’d like to think that Jazz Camp had just a small part to play in his training, but you know, it’s really great to see this student thrive. And now he’s coming to UT Tyler. So that’s one of the really cool things is we get to connect with students very young and very early in their career. And hopefully, we’ll get to see them flourish as they become budding musicians.

Mike Landess: Now, since we interviewed you this time last year about Jazz Camp, your responsibilities have increased here at UT Tyler as well.

Mike Landess: Tell us about that.

Sarah Roberts: Well, as of June 1, I became the interim director of the School of Performing Arts here at UT Tyler, and I am very excited to help our program just continue on its amazing trajectory. Our previous director, Kyle Gullings, did a fantastic job, and so I’m looking forward to hopefully adding to his momentum, and just you know, steering our department even further down the path of success.

Mike Landess: Interim director. Now are you going to seek that post permanently, or is this a test drive?

Sarah Roberts: Well, that’s a great question. You know, the beautiful thing of interim is that it is a test drive, and so you know, I’m only on day seven right now, so we’ll see what happens. But I have to say, you know, I’ve always thought that UT Tyler, and especially our School of Performing Arts, is just in a prime area to just grow. And I’ve seen that throughout my last nine years here at UT Tyler. I’m so excited for our future. We have some amazing things in the works, so stay tuned.