(BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ) -- The New Jersey Youth Symphony (NJYS), a program of the Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts (WIPA), will hold a summer jazz workshop on its nationwide online learning platform. The JTole Summer Jazz Workshop at NJYS, July 13-25, led by award-winning Jazz educator Julius Tolentino, will include a star-studded lineup of guest artists and faculty.

Sean Jones, Chair of Jazz at Peabody Conservatory and Jazz Education Network President; Kenny Rampton, Founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz Outreach Initiative; Tia Fuller, Professor of Saxophone at Berklee School of Music and Mack Ave Recording Artist; Rodney Green, Educator, Composer, and Sound Designer; Michael Dease, Professor of Trombone at Michigan State University; and Helen Sung, Composer, Performer, and Educator, will join faculty members David Gibson, Dave Schumacher, Shamie Royston, and Matt Slocum for the two-week workshop.

Said JTole Summer Jazz Workshop Director Julius Tolentino, “What separates our virtual workshop from others is that all of our teachers and master class clinicians understand and teach this music as a language. Jazz is a language and we at Wharton Arts have proven methods that will help students significantly increase their fluency to achieve the most in a short period of time."

In addition to master classes and private lessons, workshop participants will experience virtual big band and combo classes culminating in a virtual jazz festival on Sunday, July 26 where a video project featuring the workshop participants will be released. For more information and registration, visit www.WhartonArtsOnline.org. 

The Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts’ mission is to provide the highest quality performing arts education to a wide range of students in a supportive and inclusive environment, where striving for personal excellence inspires and connects those we teach to the communities we serve.

Wharton is New Jersey’s largest independent non-profit community performing arts education center serving over 1,500 students through a range of classes and ensembles including the 15 ensembles of the New Jersey Youth Symphony, which serve 500 students in grades 3 – 12 by audition. Beginning with Out of the Box Music and Pathways classes for young children, Wharton offers private lessons, group classes, and ensembles for all ages and all abilities at the Performing Arts School. With the belief in the positive and unifying influence of music and the performing arts and that arts education should be accessible to all people regardless of their ability to pay, Wharton teaches all instruments and voice and has a robust musical theater program. Based in Paterson, New Jersey, the Paterson Music Project is an El Sistema-inspired program of the Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts that uses music as a vehicle for social change by empowering and inspiring children through the community experience of ensemble learning and playing.

Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts is located in Berkeley Heights, New Providence and Paterson, NJ and reaches students from 10 counties. All of Wharton’s extraordinary faculty members and conductors hold degrees in their teaching specialty and have been vetted and trained to enable our students to achieve their personal best.