The Los Fresnos High School Jazz Orchestra will be performing at the prestigious 2025 Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) Clinic/Convention in San Antonio. The performance will take place on Friday, February 14, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center at 6:30 pm.
The Texas Music Educators Association invites one high school jazz ensemble statewide per year to perform a feature concert at its convention, which is attended by roughly 30,000 visitors.
The Los Fresnos High School Jazz Orchestra is known for its excellence in jazz performance, with a foundation built on the legacy of jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Count Basie. The group is recognized statewide and has earned numerous honors, including winning the Texas A&M Kingsville Jazz Festival, Longhorn Jazz Festival at UT Austin, and the Rio Grande Valley Jazz Festival. Recently, the group was named a National Winner in the Foundation for Music Education's National Jazz Honors in both 2023 and 2024.
In July 2024, the group was honored to serve as a demonstration group for a jazz pedagogy clinic at the Texas Bandmasters Association Convention in San Antonio, further cementing their reputation as a top-tier jazz ensemble.
“All of these recent accomplishments have led to being chosen as the Texas Music Educators Association Invited High School Jazz Ensemble. This is a coveted position reserved for only one high school jazz group in the entire state of Texas. The students and I are proud and excited to represent Los Fresnos CISD and the Rio Grande Valley in front of an international audience in San Antonio,” said David LaClair, Jazz Director.
The Los Fresnos High School Jazz Orchestra program is part of the Los Fresnos High School Band, which offers a robust jazz program that includes three distinct jazz bands. The bands are placed through a combination of TMEA All-State Jazz Auditions and on-campus auditions.
Spotlight on Jazz Musicians
The following students earned TMEA All-State honors for 2024-2025:
- Damon Rodriguez is a senior two-time TMEA All-State Jazz saxophonist, planning to pursue studies in both classical and jazz music at the collegiate level.
- Marco Acosta is a senior two-time first-chair TMEA All-State Jazz pianist and is currently auditioning to study both jazz and classical piano.
- Adrian Perez is a sophomore TMEA All-State Jazz tenor saxophonist with aspirations to teach music while continuing to refine his musical skills.
The Texas Music Educators Association is an association of over 14,000 school music educators dedicated to promoting excellence in music education. The Los Fresnos High School Jazz Orchestra will perform at the TMEA Convention under the direction of David LaClair.
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