Lawson, Hayden, Karahalios, Johnson
Sharing jazz beyond the walls of Kulas Musical Arts Building, four B-W Conservatory of Music students spent their spring break touring schools in Kentucky. Sophomores Dylan Hayden, drums and Kevin Johnson, trumpet, and freshmen Julian Karahalios, bass and Jordan Lawson, piano are members of a quartet aptly named "Grindstone Jazz." Drawing upon Hayden's previous experiences, the quartet decided to join the New Performing Arts organization in giving short educational presentations about jazz to Kentucky children from elementary school and up.
The New Performing Arts, now in its 18th season, is a nonprofit organization established in Louisville, Kentucky with a mission to increase demand for artists in smaller communities. The organization sponsors more than 600 programs each year for more than 100,000 children. All programs are presented by professional musicians; B-W's musicians being among them.
During their whirlwind tour, Hayden, Lawson, Johnson and Karahalios presented 17 different sessions in five short days where Lawson stated, "Most of the schools we performed for had never heard jazz music before, and some did not know that it was even a musical word. Many students were in awe of the trumpet and string bass because they had never seen or heard one played before."
While "the experience was exhausting but very rewarding," hundreds of students were exposed to an art form ever present on B-W's college campus. It remains another example of how the Conservatory and the College are "transforming lives;" connecting four students originally from Ohio, New York and Arizona to the rural classrooms of Kentucky through the ivory, the brass, and the steel that they touch.
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