Maine Motif Issue 1, Vol. II (Fall, 2017) | Page 25

A “Star-Studded” Line Up Of Jazz
All State Guest Conductors
By Mike Sakash, MMEA Jazz VP
This year’s Jazz All-State Festival is shaping up to be an exciting event with an excellent
line-up of guest conductors and the Portland Jazz Orchestra on hand to back up the
guest artists on the Friday evening concert. Please note that the festival takes place one
week later than in past years, January 11-13, hosted by South Portland High School.
This year’s All State Jazz
Combo will be conducted
saxophonist, composer, and
educator, Jeff Coffin. After
working with the genre-defying
band Bela Fleck and the
Flecktones for 14 years, winning
3 Grammy Awards, Jeff joined
the Dave Matthews band. He is
one of the top, in demand,
saxophonists in the world as
well as a first call studio
Jeff Coffin
musician in Nashville,
Tennessee where he has lived
since 1991. Jeff is an in-demand educator as well, and is a frequent guest artist and
conductor throughout the world.
The 2018 SSAA Jazz Choir will be directed by Rosana Eckert. Rosana is
internationally recognized as a live and studio vocalist, published songwriter and
arranger, voice-over actor, and master teacher of jazz and voice.  As a vocal artist, she
has had the pleasure of performing with such jazz greats as Lyle Mays, Kenny Wheeler,
George Duke, Jon Faddis, and Bobby McFerrin, and she is the go-to sub on both the
soprano and alto parts in the Grammy Award-winning vocal quartet New York Voices.