WAYJO’s Season Celebration: Hyde Park

Join the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra on the lawns of Hyde Park for a Sunday afternoon of jazz and the first concert of 2024!

This free, family-friendly event features music from all three big bands: Monday Night Orchestra, St John of God Health Care Tuesday Night Orchestra, and Wednesday Night Orchestra.

You’ll also be the first to hear about WAYJO’s upcoming events, tours, the special international guest artists joining the orchestras this year, and what’s in store for the programs supporting emerging musicians.

Pack a picnic and come listen to the swingin’ sounds of jazz from your favourite youth jazz orchestra in the lush green surrounds of Hyde Park, this year introducing some of the youngest performers yet!

WAYJO’s Season Celebration: Hyde Park
3-5pm, Sun 24 March 2024
Free event – all invited!

WAYJO thanks Government Partner the Department of Local Government, Sport, and Cultural Industries, Principal Partner North West Shelf Gas, Major Programs Partner Minderoo Foundation, MinterEllison, and St John of God Health Care Tuesday Night Orchestra Naming Rights Partner for their continued support.


Welcome to our 2024 orchestra members

WAYJO’s Pathways Education Program was developed to engage with young and emerging jazz artists.
 
An integral part of the annual program, WAYJO is proud to facilitate the Northern Corridor Training Band for high school-aged students (which is currently accepting enrolments), and the Progressions Program for individuals on the outskirts of jazz.
 
The programs are designed to enhance and develop the skills of aspiring musicians through artistic mentorship, guided workshops and rehearsals, and quality performance experiences in a big band setting. In addition, participants connect with peers as well as professionals in the music industry, bringing concepts from the classroom to life.
 
WAYJO is thrilled to announce, therefore, that six of the newest band members in the three main orchestras have come through the Pathways Programs.

They are:
Aavi Barker | MNO | Trumpet
Dexter Bell | MNO | Alto Saxophone
Jaeden Carlyon | TNO | Baritone Saxophone

Isabelle Cranley Dixon | MNO | Tenor Saxophone
Ella Dias | TNO | Bass

Ryley Ford | MNO | Trombone

WAYJO’s 2024 Orchestra Members

WAYJO is delighted to have so many returning members in the three big bands: WAYJO’s MinterEllison Monday Night Orchestra (MNO), led by Ricki Malet; St John of God Healthcare Tuesday Night Orchestra (TNO) with Musical Director Marty Pervan; and, directed by Mace Francis, the WAYJO Wednesday Night Orchestra (WNO).
 
A huge welcome, as well, to the thirteen newest band members, for whom this will be their first year with WAYJO.

See the full list of orchestra members and their instruments.


WAYJO’s Best of 2023

WAYJO’s Best of 2023 is the final performance of WAYJO’s 40th year and an opportunity to showcase all three orchestras and their favourite repertoire of the year set at the beautiful the Quarry Amphitheatre on Saturday 18 November.

WAYJO’s Best of 2023
7:30pm – 10pm, Saturday 18 November
Quarry Amphitheatre
BOOK TICKETS


WAYJO NC plays The Ellington

The WA Youth Jazz Orchestra Northern Corridor Band assists in the development of young musicians who have an interest in playing big band jazz. This ensemble focuses on the growth of its members through developing deeper musical understanding, leadership, and camaraderie.

The band is currently comprised of students from 12 different schools across Perth and the Peel region, with students travelling from Mandurah to Duncraig for the weekly rehearsals.

These young musicians are driven by a love of jazz that is palpable in their on-stage presence and commitment to their craft. They’ll be showcasing a myriad of big band tunes from iconic bands like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, right through to modern compositions by Perth’s own, Gemma Farrell.

Come and experience the next generation of Australian jazz legends before they become famous!

Music Director: Jess Herbert

WAYJO NC PLAYS THE ELLINGTON
Sunday 29 October 2023
Doors: 3pm
Show: 3:30pm to 4:30pm
The Ellington Jazz Club
Book Tickets


2023 Composers-in-Residence

The WA Youth Jazz Orchestra is delighted to announce the selection of Composers-in-Residence for this year. As part of our commitment to supporting young jazz composers, we are offering these talented individuals the opportunity to develop new works, enhance their writing skills, and explore the art of conducting.

Under the guidance of WAYJO’s Artistic Director, Mace Francis, our Composer-in-Residence program has become a hallmark of excellence in the industry since its launch in 2008. We encourage the composers to consider innovative approaches to utilising the big band instrumentation of the WAYJO Wednesday Night Orchestra and contribute to the vibrant jazz landscape in WA.

Read about the selected composers below, learn more about our Composer-in-Residence program, and stay tuned for updates on their exciting compositions and upcoming performances!


Oliver Taylor

Oliver a saxophonist, composer and music teacher based in Perth, Western Australia. He’s been playing the saxophone for nearly a decade, as well as picking up the clarinet and flute along the way. He has a deep passion for music and musical education.

Oliver completed an honours degree from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2021 and was awarded a $1200 prize for presenting the best honours recital in his graduating year.

Oliver is currently a member of WAYJO’s Wednesday night band and has a been a member since 2020. Oliver performs regularly around Perth, typically as a sideman playing jazz, swing, funk, blues, pop, and contemporary music.


Max Grynchuk

Max is a Ukrainian-born trumpeter, composer, and arranger based in Adelaide, Australia. He completed his Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours specialising in Jazz Performance at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, Adelaide in 2018. During his time at university, Max was the recipient of several awards including the Howell Ross Award for Top Trumpet Undergraduate (2017), and the Keith & Susie Langley Memorial Award for Best Overall Honours Graduate (2019). He was also the recipient of the Mike Stewart Award (2019) presented by the Helpmann Academy and JazzSA, which was valued at $10,000 and required a grant proposal.

Max began writing for big band at age 14. At 16 he was commissioned to write for the JazzSA Superbands, contributing eight original works between 2012-2015. In 2018, Max was selected as the programs inaugural Composer-In-Residence, writing a further eight pieces that year alone. In 2019, Max returned to the program as a band director.

Max has recorded three albums as leader of his own big band. The band’s debut album ‘As For Now’ (2021) consisted of nine of Max’s originals compositions and featured special guest appearances from saxophonist Will Vinson and guitarist James Muller. The band’s second album, ‘Max Grynchuk Big Band Plays Eraser Description’ (2021), featured five of Max’s arrangements of the music of synth-funk trio Eraser Description. A follow up album, ‘Max Grynchuk Big Band Plays Eraser Description Vol. II’ was released in August 2022 featuring six new arrangements. Two of Max’s works were also featured on the Mike Stewart Big Band’s 2021 album ‘The Hang’.

Over 40 of Max’s big band compositions and arrangements are available for purchase through his website. He has sold works to high school and tertiary institutions around the world, including in the US, UK, Japan, France, and Luxembourg. Locally, Max’s pieces have been regularly performed by high school bands at festivals such as Generations in Jazz, and he has also written several big band division set pieces for the ABODA Band & Orchestra Festival.

Since 2016, Max has been the arranger for the annual Carols in the Park event hosted by the Tea Tree Gully council, the most recent of which attracted a crowd of 45,000. He has also been the primary arranger for the Royal Australian Navy Band SA since 2013, in which time he has contributed over 70 specialised arrangements for a variety of ensembles including big band, rock band and parade band.

Since 2015, Max has performed as a member of the Hilltop Hoods horn section. He has played at festivals such as Falls Festival, Splendour in the Grass, Groovin’ the Moo, as well as the Australian leg of their world tour, and as a support act for Eminem’s tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Max is currently the Bands Coordinator at St. Peter’s College SA.


Jessica Carlton

Jessica is a trumpet player and composer originally from Melbourne, Australia; now living in Perth.

Jessica graduated high school from the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and graduated with a Bachelor of Music Performance (Jazz Trumpet) from Monash University (2015) where she was awarded the Monash Jazz Prize (2014). Later in 2014, she released her first album ‘Not Alone’ and with this was nominated for the Bell Awards’ Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year. After living in New York for two years, Jessica moved back to Australia and moved to Perth for the first time in 2018. In 2021 she was nominated for the Music Trust’s Freedman Jazz Fellowship where she submitted a proposal about composing music about the feminist movement in China. Jessica recorded some of that music on a collaborative quartet album (with Kate Pass, Talya Valenti, and Alana Macpherson) entitled ‘Undeniable’ (released 2022). In 2022, Jessica was also nominated for WAM’s Best Brass Instrumentalist.

Jessica received the higher degree by research scholarship at WAAPA and is currently undertaking a research project about musical ekphrasis (transforming visual art and poetry into music composition and improvisation).

Jessica has been teaching trumpet for the past ten years and is very passionate about good quality, empathetic, and equitable education for young students. As an autistic woman of colour, Jessica is also deeply passionate about gender and racial equality, as well as disability inclusion and awareness, particularly in education and music performance.


WAYJO’s 40th Anniversary Weekend

Celebrating 40 years of the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra

You’re invited to the jazz party of the year as the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) turns 40!

With thousands of events under its belt and a special place in many a WA musician’s hearts and memories, WAYJO is marking the occasion in style – bringing together Perth’s biggest jazz names alongside future stars of the Australian jazz scene for one special weekend at the State Theatre Centre’s Studio Underground and Foyer.

The celebrations begin with a Gala performance on Friday evening featuring WAYJO big bands alongside special guest alumni including Perth’s premier jazz vocalist, Libby Hammer, the versatile trombonist Catherine Noblet, the accomplished saxophonist Gemma Farrell, and the elegant vocalist Lucy Iffla.

On the big night, all three bands – MinterEllison Monday Night Orchestra, St John of God Health Care Tuesday Night Orchestra, and Wednesday Night Orchestra – will take to the stage to perform commissioned works, band and fan favourites, and classic big band jazz repertoire.

Then on Saturday, take a trip down memory lane and immerse yourself in our mini festival hub of in-conversations, small group jazz ensembles, historic photo displays, alumni appearances, and big band performances.

Be transported through time as all three big bands celebrate the greats playing classic big band jazz, music from the depths of the WAYJO library, and a line-up that traces jazz through to contemporary, translating be-bop to hip-hop.

With guest artists Jamie Oehlers, Libby Hammer, and Zero Emcee, this is an event not to be missed.

Join us as we celebrate WAYJO’s 40-year history and look towards the future of jazz!

WAYJO’s 40th Festival Weekend

WAYJO’s 40th Anniversary Concert
7:30pm, Friday 26 May
Studio Underground
SOLD OUT

WAYJO’s 40th Anniversary Festival
4pm – 10pm, Saturday 27 May
Studio Underground
BOOK TICKETS

40th Anniversary Program

Friday Program

The guest alumni are some of the most accomplished jazz musicians in WA. Libby Hammer, recipient of the Perth Jazz Society’s Award for Most Outstanding Individual Contribution To Jazz in 2005, spent two years as resident vocalist for WAYJO and now returns to grace the stage in celebration of WAYJO’s four-decade history.

Catherine Noblet, who played for over 10 years in WAYJO in the late 1990s to mid 2000s, studied at WAAPA and undertook a master’s in jazz studies at the University of Illinois, studying with legendary trombonist Jim Pugh, and receiving a fellowship and teaching assistant position.

Saxophonist Gemma Farrell, leader of WAYJO’s Progressions program and winner of WAM’s Best Brass, String or Woodwind Instrumentalist in 2020, is the founder and musical director of the Artemis Orchestra, a predominately female big band which performs the original music of Australian women, non-binary, and transgender people.

And recent WAYJO alumni, vocalist Lucy Iffla, who is already carving a successful career and following achieving a Top 10 Nominee for the Wangaratta 2020 National Jazz Awards, showcases an elegant and timeless voice beyond her years.

Rapper Zero Emcee – who joined WAYJO last year in a collaboration called Beats & Pieces and was a highlight of last year’s program – will join the Wednesday Night Orchestra to add some hip hop flavour to the big band repertoire.

Saturday Program


WAYJO's 40th Anniversary Concert & Festival

You’re invited to the jazz party of the year as WAYJO turns 40!

With thousands of events under its belt and a special place in many a WA musician’s hearts and memories, WAYJO is marking the occasion in style – bringing together Perth’s biggest jazz names alongside future stars of the Australian jazz scene for one special weekend at the State Theatre Centre’s Studio Underground and Foyer.

Join us as we celebrate WAYJO’s 40-year history and look towards the future of jazz!


40th Anniversary Concert

The celebrations begin with a Gala performance on Friday evening featuring WAYJO big bands alongside special guest alumni including Perth’s premier jazz vocalist, Libby Hammer, the versatile trombonist Catherine Noblet, the accomplished saxophonist Gemma Farrell, and the elegant vocalist Lucy Iffla.

On the big night, all three bands – MinterEllison Monday Night Orchestra, St John of God Health Care Tuesday Night Orchestra, and Wednesday Night Orchestra – will take to the stage to perform commissioned works, band and fan favourites, and classic big band jazz repertoire.

WAYJO’s 40th Anniversary Concert
7:30pm, Friday 26 May
Studio Underground

BOOK TICKETS

40th Anniversary Festival

Then on Saturday, take a trip down memory lane and immerse yourself in our mini festival hub of in-conversations, small group jazz ensembles, historic photo displays, alumni appearances, and big band performances.

Be transported through time as all three big bands celebrate the greats playing classic big band jazz, music from the depths of the WAYJO library, and a line-up that traces jazz through to contemporary, translating be-bop to hip-hop.

With guest artists Jamie Oehlers, Libby Hammer, and Zero Emcee, this is an event not to be missed.

WAYJO’s 40th Anniversary Festival
4pm – 10pm, Saturday 27 May
Studio Underground

BOOK TICKETS


The Groove Merchants: Tessie Overmyer Plays Thad Jones

The Groove Merchants: Tessie Overmyer Plays Thad Jones sees guest artist, Tessie Overmyer, one of Sydney’s most exciting emerging jazz alto saxophonists, and the WAYJO Wednesday Night Orchestra playing the music of seminal big band composer Thad Jones, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth.

In 2020 and 2021, Tessie was selected to play lead alto in the Australian National Youth Jazz Orchestra and plays lead alto with the Sydney Conservatorium Jazz Orchestra.

The Groove Merchants: Tessie Overmyer Plays Thad Jones
7:30pm – 9:30pm, Saturday 1 April
Downstairs at The Maj
BOOK TICKETS


The Groove Merchants: Tessie Overmyer Plays Thad Jones

The Groove Merchants: Tessie Overmyer Plays Thad Jones sees guest artist, Tessie Overmyer, one of Sydney’s most exciting emerging jazz alto saxophonists, and the WAYJO Wednesday Night Orchestra playing the music of seminal big band composer Thad Jones, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth.

In 2020 and 2021, Tessie was selected to play lead alto in the Australian National Youth Jazz Orchestra and plays lead alto with the Sydney Conservatorium Jazz Orchestra.

The Groove Merchants: Tessie Overmyer Plays Thad Jones
7:30pm – 9:30pm, Friday 31 March
Fishtrap Theatre, Mandurah Performing Arts Centre
BUY TICKETS


WAYJO's 40th Anniversary Season Launch Block Party

WAYJO is celebrating our 40th anniversary this year, and we’re throwing a free Season Launch Block Party to get the festivities started!

Join us at Lyric Lane in Maylands for performances from all three big bands; MinterEllison Monday Night Orchestra, St John of God Health Care Tuesday Night Orchestra, and Wednesday Night Orchestra.

As well as their swinging sounds, you’ll hear all about our 2023 program, learn about our guest artist touring program, and be the first to know about our upcoming 40th year two-day festival.

We can’t wait to welcome you to the launch of our fourth decade as Australia’s leading youth jazz orchestra!

WAYJO’s 40th Anniversary Season Launch Block Party 2023
3 – 5pm, Sun 5 March 2023
Free event – all invited!

WAYJO thanks Government Partner the Department of Local Government, Sport, and Cultural Industries, Principal Partner North West Shelf Gas, Major Programs Partner Minderoo Foundation, MinterEllison Monday Night Orchestra Naming Rights Partner, St John of God Health Care Tuesday Night Orchestra Naming Rights Partner, and Healthway Act Belong Commit for their continued support.