Music Week at Wellesley High: Jazz & orchestra concerts on tap

Wellesley High School’s jazz bands and choir, plus guest  vocalist Peter Eldridge from the Grammy Award-winning New York Voices group, will perform in concert on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 7pm at the school. The concert is free and open to the public.

That performance will be followed on Wednesday night Nov. 19 at 7pm by the Orchestra concert, featuring WHS Symphonia and Honors Chamber Orchestra. This concert, at Wellesley High, is also free and open to the public.

On Tuesday,  the One O’Clock Jazz Band will perform a set that includes “Blues In The Closet” by Oscar Peterson, “Blue Train” by John Coltrane, and “Freddy Freeloader” from the Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” album. The Two O’Clock Jazz Band will perform “Symphony in Riffs” by Benny Carter, “Basically Blue” by Phil Wilson, and “Milestones,” another Miles Davis tune.

The Rice Street Singers will perform “Hit Me With a Hot Note,” “Green Dolphin Street,” “Cloudburst” and “Falling In Love With Love.”

Guest artist Eldridge, who recently returned to Boston to join the faculty at Berklee College of Music, will perform several numbers with the Rice Street Singers, including “Baby Driver” and “The World Keeps You Waiting,” and will join the Two O’Clock Jazz Band for jazz standard “Skylark.” He will also present an individual set with his professional rhythm section from Berklee. Eldridge will also join Wellesley High’s Chad Weirick with a jazz piano duet.

The Honors Chamber Orchestra on Wednesday will perform Josef Suk’s Serenade for Strings, which was written when the composer was 18 years old.

WHS Symphonia will be playing the second movement of the Mendelssohn String Symphony in D Major, an arrangement of the first movement of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, and Themes from the Moldau; a collection of pieces from Smetana’s Má vlast. Additionally, Symphonia will perform a modern composition by Shirl Jae Atwell titled Drifen.

For further information, please contact the WPS Performing Arts office during business hours at 781-446-6250, ext. 5720.

You can keep up with music, drama and dance performances presented by the Wellesley Public Schools on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WellesleyPOPS.