The Sant Andreu Jazz Band has made the name of the Barcelona neighborhood of Sant Andreu de Palomar shine at the Metropolitan Opera House (Met) in New York. And it has done so by taking second place at the Essentially Ellington festival, the competition promoted by American jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
The competition, which aims to promote groups emerging from high schools, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary this year with the participation of thirty big bands, most of which came from the United States. In fact, the Barcelona group, which arrived at the competition by invitation, was the only non-European group to participate in the competition, which is held annually at Lincoln Center.
The jazz band, currently made up of 24 teenagers, managed to prevail and reach the final of the competition, competing with two American bands: the Memphis Central High School from Tennessee, the winning group of the competition, and the Osceola County School for the Arts from Florida, which came in third place.
In addition to the Sant Andreu group, a band from Japan and another from Australia also participated in the competition, as well as 27 from the United States. The competition culminated with a concert at the Met in New York, one of the most prominent opera houses, which has hosted great voices such as Luciano Pavarotti and Maria Callas.
The Sant Andreu Jazz Band is an orchestra born as a musical and educational project of the Municipal School of Music of Sant Andreu, led by saxophonist, double bassist and pedagogue Joan Chamorro. Since its foundation in 2006, more than eighty musicians between 6 and 21 years old have passed through the group, some of whom have developed brilliant independent professional careers, such as Rita Payés, Andrea Motis, Èlia Bastida or Joan Mar Sauqué.
In 2011, the Barcelona-based group received the Alícia award for educational project, granted by the Catalan Academy of Music. Since its creation, the group has also recorded and released more than 30 albums, combining classic swing with more modern influences, and has toured a large number of stages around the world, performing in countries such as France, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States. Throughout its career, the Sant Andreu Jazz Band has also shared stages with renowned artists such as Jesse Davis, Terell Stafford, Wycliffe Gordon, and Perico Sambeat.