The Mountlake Terrace High School Jazz Band is among four Puget Sound area schools headed to the 30th annual Essentially Ellington competition and festival May 7-11 in New York City.

Mountlake Terrace’s Jazz Ensemble 1, under the direction of Darin Faul, will join Bothell High School and Seattle’s Garfield and Roosevelt High Schools in performing at the Essentially Ellington competition.  This year Mountlake Terrace’s 10th year to be selected for the competition although only its ninth year attending. While the school was selected to compete in 2020, the festival was later canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a news release from the sponsoring organization, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the number of bands selected to compete in the finals doubled, from 15 to 30. A three-day competition in years past, the 2025 Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival will take place over five days, which will include two rounds of competition taking place on two stages, Rose Theater and the Appel Room. The final concert and awards ceremony will be May 11 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

“In the first years of Essentially Ellington, we at Jazz at Lincoln Center were insisting on the integrity of the playing,” said Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center managing and artistic director. “Since then, so many great musicians have come through the program, and many of them have had a profound impact on the scene. I’ve also been impacted by the students and the interactions I’ve had with them over these 30 years.

“The fact that hundreds of thousands — perhaps even millions — of young people around the world have played Duke Ellington’s music, and his music has been distributed so widely through this program, is a tremendous source of joy for me. I truly feel that Jazz at Lincoln Center has contributed something of real value to the world. The music of Duke Ellington is certainly the highest level of what has come out of the United States of America,” Marsalis added.

The 30 finalists were selected from 127 schools, a record number, that submitted recordings of select tunes from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s R. Theodore Ammon Archives and Music Library.

The annual Essentially Ellington event brings musicians from across North America to Jazz at Lincoln Center to spend several days immersed in workshops, jam sessions, rehearsals and performances. This year, for the first time ever, three international guest bands will join to compete on stage in Rose Theater.

The top-placing bands will be chosen by several judging panels comprising distinguished jazz musicians and historians, including Joseph Jefferson, Ingrid Jensen, Sherrie Maricle, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Ulysses Owens, Catherine Russell, Reggie Thomas, Camille Thurman, Liesel Whitaker and others to be announced.

Essentially Ellington Festival events, including the final concert featuring the top-placing bands and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, will stream live on jazzlive.com. Tickets will be available for purchase in the coming months. For more information, visit jazz.org/ee.

Here is the list of all the bands selected:

William H. Hall High School (West Hartford, Connecticut)
Directed by Phil Giampietro

Youth Jazz Ensemble of DuPage (Wheaton, Illinois)
Directed by Robert Blazek

Bothell High School (Bothell, Washington)
Directed by Philip Dean

Byron Center High School (Byron Center, Michigan)
Directed by Marc Townley

Carroll Senior High School (Southlake, Texas)
Directed by David Lown

Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts (West Palm Beach, Florida)
Directed by Christopher M. De León

King Philip Regional High School (Wrentham, Massachusetts)
Directed by Michael Keough

Agoura High School (Agoura Hills, California)
Directed by Robert Hackett

Jazz House Kids (Montclair, New Jersey)
Directed by Nathan Eklund

Osceola County School for the Arts (Kissimmee, Florida)
Directed by Jason Anderson

Rio Americano High School (Sacramento, California)
Directed by Josh Murray

Sun Prairie High School (Sun Prairie, Wisconsin)
Directed by Matt McVeigh

Susan E. Wagner High School (Staten Island, New York)
Directed by Paul Corn

Newton South High School (Newton, Massachusetts)
Directed by Lisa Linde

Memphis Central High School (Memphis, Tennessee)
Directed by Ollie Liddell

Plano West Senior High School (Plano, Texas)
Directed by Preston Pierce

Stanford Jazz Workshop (Stanford, California)
Directed by Michael Galisatus

Hoover High School (Hoover, Alabama)
Directed by Sallie White

New World School of the Arts (Miami, Florida)
Directed by Jim Gasior

Mountlake Terrace High School (Mountlake Terrace, Washington)
Directed by Darin Faul

Garfield High School (Seattle, Washington)
Directed by Jared Sessink

Newark Academy (Livingston, New Jersey)
Directed by Julius Tolentino

Tucson Jazz Institute (Tucson, Arizona)
Directed by Brice Winston

Roosevelt High School (Seattle, Washington)
Directed by Hannah Mowry

Orange County School of the Arts (Santa Ana, California)
Directed by John Reynolds

Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music (Bronx, New York)
Directed by Penelope Smetters-Jacono

Ann Arbor Huron High School (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
Directed by Robert Ash

Blackburn High School (Victoria, Australia)
Directed by Andrew O’Connell

Tomisato High School (Chiba, Japan)
Directed by Masaki Shinohara

Sant Andreu Jazz Band (Barcelona, Spain)
Directed by Joan Chamorro