Burlington Township Jazz Nouveau sings its way to the top

The Burlington Township Jazz Nouveau won first place at the Berklee Jazz Festival last weekend

The Burlington Township High School Jazz Nouveau sung its way to the top at the Berklee High School Jazz Festival in Boston this month. The group competed with more than 100 schools from around the country and placed first in their division, with two students from the nouveau winning individual awards.

Seniors Ehren Valme and Jessie Feoli won Outstanding Vocalist and Judges’ Choice awards, respectively. The nouveau competes in V1, which is the top vocal jazz ensemble division. The group had 18 minutes to perform and wow the judges.

“There is so much talent at the competition,” nouveau member Emma Rulli said. “It was a great honor to be amongst them and compete against them.”

Rulli is a junior at BTHS and has been involved with the jazz program ever since she was a freshman.

The competition took place at the Berklee College of Music, what director Steve Bishop believes to be one of the top jazz schools in the world.

Bishop, who used to be a Broadway director, originally intended to fill his position as high school vocal music teacher temporarily, but has now been with the district for more than seven years.

“What’s really kept me teaching is I feel I can make a completely different level of difference in people’s lives,” Bishop said. “I just really love the kids, so I stayed on.”

Bishop founded the jazz vocal program when he first joined the district, and the vocalists began competing five years ago.

The Jazz Nouveau is a new addition to the jazz program at the high school this year. The program is now separated into two groups, the Jazz Singers and the Jazz Nouveau. Bishop says he created the second group due to the large volume of students desiring to get involved with jazz. This has allowed the number of students participating to grow from approximately 25 last year to 37 this year.

This year, 12 of the 37 students are part of the nouveau. More than half are in the top 11 percent of their class academically, and the entire group averages grades better than 95 percent in their classes.

“Study after study has shown that music has a very positive impact on academics because it engages a different part of our brains that really opens up the possibility for learning,” Bishop said.

While the nouveau was the group that won, Rulli says the singers and the nouveau are one big family.

“The singers were there to support us and cheer us on and they were a part of the win,” she said. “My favorite part about our jazz program and the arts in our school is that everyone is very much a family. I cannot only count on the people in my group to support me during a performance, but if I have anything outside of the group where I’m stressed, I can count on them as supporters and friends.”

Junior Jacob Moskovitz agreed, complementing the individuality of the group.

“Every year we get a group of completely diverse individuals, and they bring something unique to the music,” Moskovitz said. “You learn from the differences in the group.”

Like Rulli, Moskovitz has been with the program since he was a freshman. He also said the entire group was humbled and honored to win, and he has learned invaluable skills from the jazz program, such as collaboration and work ethic.

“We’ve done well in the past, but this was a tremendous landmark for our arts program and our school,” Moskovitz said. “These individuals in the group are some of the most astonishing, passionate, discipline, intelligent, deserving people I know.”