The Elon University Minor in Jazz Studies is multi-faceted, with each of its parts complementing and enhancing the whole concentration.

The Jazz Studies program:

• Offers courses that focus on the key stylistic ingredients of “America’s Classical Music,” including its lifeblood, Improvisation; its inspiration, Jazz History; its skill set and knowledge base, Theory, Ear-Training, and Arranging; and its performance practice and repertoire, Private Lessons, Combos, and Big Band.  The above instruction creates an environment whereby life-long habits for active listening, natural inquisitiveness, and individual and group expression are developed; and future professional performers, outstanding teachers, and on-going consumers and creative participants are inspired.

• Commits to community outreach that simultaneously supports students’ experiential learning by presenting numerous public events on- and off-campus, at schools, and at local, regional, national, and international venues and festivals.  This outreach also includes maintaining on-campus an annual Jazz Festival for visiting middle and high school students that showcases and creates interaction with nationally and internationally known jazz artists and jazz educators.

• Provides resources, role models, and leadership for the area community.  As jazz artists, performers, and teachers, its faculty serve as jazz education consultants, clinicians, featured soloists, composers, and recording artists.