Features The jazz ensembles are also raking in success. Haar said one of his favorite moments of the past couple years came during an appearance by the Jazz Ensemble I at the Kansas University Jazz Festival in 2011. Cover artwork for the Jazz Orchestra’s The group third CD, “Homegrown,” which was was named released this summer. Outstanding College Ensemble, and played as the opening act for the event’s closing performance. Haar said the group played so well, that “people [say] the highlight of that concert was the band that opened the concert,” Haar said. It was after that performance that Haar loaded the band onto a bus for the ride home and informed them that they had won Downbeat Magazine’s Undergraduate College Outstanding Performance award for a tape of a previous performance. “They kind of freaked out,” Haar said. The ensemble went on to win the KU Jazz Festival for a second time in the spring of 2012 under the direction of Eric Richards. Haar said achievements like these would not have been possible without a cooperative administration. “We’ve been extremely fortunate that administration. . . sees the importance of what we do,” Haar said. He said many colleges don’t see programs like jazz studies as an important part of the university. But UNL administrators of the School of Music, in the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts and at the university in general have been very supportive of the program, said Haar, doing things like adding a master’s and doctoral degree in jazz studies to the list of possible majors for students. Supportive administrators, strong faculty, and eager students combine to make UNL’s jazz program strong, Haar said. But in the end, the students are the most important. “The program’s been successful first and foremost because of the students’ excitement,” Haar said. The next step for UNL jazz is to start performing at a national level. “I’m excited to see how the university, the college and the school can better showcase the talent that our students Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts
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do,” Haar said. He said he wants people to understand how much students are achieving and to recognize the creativity that is put into their work. “I want people in the city of Lincoln, and the state of Nebraska to see what we do—not for our faculty’s sake and not even for the university’s sake but for the students’ sake,” Haar said. “It’s got to be about the students.”
by julia peterson
Julia Peterson will be a junior news editorial major this fall in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. She grew up in Lincoln, Neb., and hopes to be a reporter for a newspaper or magazine.
arts MAGAZINE | 2012