News and Events : News 06-07

NMH Trumpeter to Play at Grammys

GILL, MA—Chazz Canney, a senior at Northfield Mount Hermon School, will be one of thirty high school students from the US and Canada to play in the Gibson/Baldwin Grammy Jazz Ensembles at the 49th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in February. The program provides students with unparalleled opportunities to rehearse and perform in front of some of music's biggest names. Chazz plays jazz trumpet and will perform with the big band at the ceremony. He was selected based on a video-taped screening. The student musicians will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to perform at Grammy Week events—the Grammy Awards ceremony, as well as workshops, recording studios, clubs, and other venues around Los Angeles, CA—February 3 to 12, 2007.

Chazz picked up the trumpet when he was 11. He says with a smile that he chose the trumpet, against the advice of his bandleader, because his best friend was playing it. Chazz, who is from Rutland, VT, has been a member of the MMEA District and All-State Jazz Ensembles (in 2006, receiving the highest score in the district for jazz piano as well) and was nominated later that year for the MENC All-Eastern Jazz Ensemble. In 2005, he was the recipient of the Elizabeth Leyden Music Award and received a distinction for Outstanding Improvisation at the Holyoke Jazz Festival. He has attended both the Crane Youth Music and Jazz in July summer programs. He plays 1st trumpet with NMH’s jazz ensemble, concert band and symphony orchestra, and is a member of its world music combo, jazz quartet and all-male a cappella group. He is also a member of the local funk/jazz quintet, 3ve (pronounced threeve); recent performance venues include the Iron Horse Music Hall, Pearl Street Night Club, Strange Creek and Camp Creek Music Festivals and Middle East Nightclub. Outside of school, he is a freelance musician around Vermont.

About his vocation as a musician, he says, “Music can feel like breathing; it can taste like a cool drink of water; it can be the greatest joy that life has in store.”

Contact: Kate Snyder, 413-498-3357 or ksnyder@nmhschool.org.

Top of Page