PITTSBURG, Kan. — Around 33 Four State area campers spent the beginning of this week participating in an intensive, specialized jazz music camp aimed at sharpening their music skills while, at the same time, honoring a local jazz band student.
The Josiah Fletcher Jazz Camp returned to the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts Monday and Tuesday this week. An opportunity to grow musically while connecting with others; the camp entered its third year. The camp had been created by the Josiah Fletcher Foundation following the death of Josiah Fletcher, who died in 2023 following a crash.
With his mother Erin, father Joshua, and sister Alexa serving on the board of directors, the foundation and the two-day camp honors Josiah’s values of inclusivity and his deep passion for music, involved since kindergarten.
The camp offers students sixth grade through 12th grade the chance to experience jazz at all levels, providing an instructional and educational experience taught by faculty at Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg High School, and Palen Music Center in Joplin. Opportunities at the camp included big band performance, jazz theory, improvisation, master classes, and jazz combos for the more advanced students.
“The way we formatted it this year is kids receive a packet of music on day one and we start rehearsals, we don’t know exactly what we are going to be working with each year because it’s not an auditioned group where we hear what the students sound like beforehand,” said instructor and PHS band director Cooper Neil. “So the clinicians don’t know exactly what level their group is going to be at until they hear them.
“We have kind of placed the groups based on age and experience on those paper auditions. Mostly, this here has been rehearsal and then they have sessions where they learn about the art of improvisation and a lot of these kids have never improvised before and so that’s where we try to focus. We do a little bit of teaching music and a little bit of teaching improvisation.”
Neil has notably been involved with the camp since its beginning.
“I think this is such a cool opportunity,” he said. “Number one, to carry on the legacy of Josiah Fletcher and also, number two, it really fills a gap in this area. I think there’s only a few schools in the southeast Kansas area that even have a curricular jazz program, so some of these students come from smaller schools. There’s a large chunk that comes from Galena, and they have started a jazz program in the last few years.
“... There’s a lot of band camps over the summer. There’s marching band that Masonic Band puts on with the Shrine Bowl,Lion’s Band puts on this huge concert band camp, but there’s just a few other jazz camps. Ottawa has one that’s been happening for a long time ... Other than that, we want to offer something to these southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri kids that is close to home.”
Fletcher expressed her excitement with the turnout as the event returned to the Bicknell Center on the campus of Pittsburg State University.
“It’s great,” she said. “... We’ve had so many students from so many different schools that have shown up ... It (Bicknell Center) gives it such significance and such professionalism in everything and that’s what we want the kids to know that this is a valued talent, this is how it’s done professionally, and you can do it. So it is possible. You can do this and look at the great places you can perform.”
For more information on the Josiah Fletcher Foundation, visit josiahfletcherfoundation.org or email josiahfletcherfoundation@gmail.com.
This reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/Localnews.
