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Three Seattle-Area High Schools Selected For Ellington Jazz Fest

caption: Clockwise from top, left: Kaela Jackson (senior, Garfield), Julia Tanner (sophomore, Roosevelt), Kat Pompermayer (sophomore, Northwest), Ferdos al-Haider (freshman, Franklin), Beatriz Souza (senior, Interlake), Eliana Glass (senior, Roosevelt)
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Clockwise from top, left: Kaela Jackson (senior, Garfield), Julia Tanner (sophomore, Roosevelt), Kat Pompermayer (sophomore, Northwest), Ferdos al-Haider (freshman, Franklin), Beatriz Souza (senior, Interlake), Eliana Glass (senior, Roosevelt)
KUOW Photo/Daniel Berman

Essentially Ellington, a high school jazz festival in New York City, has released the names of 15 bands that will attend the contest finals in New York in May.

Three local high schools will be at Lincoln Center: Garfield High School and Roosevelt High School, both from Seattle, and Mount Si High School, of Snoqualmie. Those three bands also made the finals in 2015.

Seattle JazzED’s Girls Ellington Project, featured recently on KUOW, did not make the cut.

Laurie DeKoch, Seattle JazzED executive director , was disappointed but said by email that the result was not unexpected, given the stiff competition.

“It was fun to dream!” she wrote on Wednesday afternoon.

The Girls Ellington Project performs at Seattle’s Triple Door on March 3, and at Jazz Alley in early April.

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