SSU/Redwood Empire Jazz Festival 2026
February 13, 2026
Weill Hall, Green Music Center
The SSU/Redwood Empire Jazz Festival is a competitive and educational event open to middle school, high school, and junior college big bands and jazz combos. Trophies will be awarded to the top three bands of each class. Each band will receive taped and written comments, a 30-minute clinic from a renowned jazz educator, and a video of their performance. Top soloists from each band will be recognized with certificates. The SSU jazz faculty will provide additional rolling clinics and the SSU Jazz Orchestra will perform around lunchtime. Sign your band up at the link below!
Performance slots in Weill Hall are going fast!Please contact Doug Leibinger if you have any questions - [email protected]
All performances and faculty clinics are free and open to the public.
Apply to the SSU/Redwood Empire Jazz Festival
(Due by January 20, 2026)
Free Admission, $6 Parking
Adjudicators
Mary Fettig
Saxophonist/ woodwind doubler Mary Fettig has recorded and toured with such greats as Stan Kenton, Marian McPartland, Tito Puente, Flora Purim and Airto, playing jazz festivals including Concord, Monterey, Playboy, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Montreaux, and North Sea. She regularly plays celebrity shows, having shared the stage with Seth Mac Farland, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Natalie Cole, Tony Bennett, Robin Williams, Lady Gaga, Ray Charles, Johnny Mathis and many others.
She has extensive studio credits in film, television, video games and radio, including many Peanuts and Garfield cartoons and specials. In San Francisco she played 25 different Broadway shows in the pit orchestras as a woodwind doubler, with the record-breaking 5 year run of Phantom of the Opera as her longest run. She regularly performs with the San Francisco Symphony and various bay area orchestras.
Mary’s own recordings include “In Good Company”, “Relativity”, and “Brazilian Footprints”.
She is a former faculty member of San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Diablo Valley College, St. Mary’s College and Los Medanos College. She stays busy as a free lance musician as well as adjudicating and performing with school groups.
Michael Galisatus
Michael Galisatus is the director of the Stanford University Jazz Orchestra, the Stanford Jazz Workshop “Miles Ahead” Big Band, and professor emeritus at the College of San Mateo. Mr.Galisatus has produced award winning jazz and symphonic groups since 1980 and has been the recipient of various teaching honors including the California Music Educators Association (CMEA) Jazz Educator of the year, The CMEA Bay Section Outstanding Jazz Educator Award,The Peninsula Arts Council Arts Educator of the Year, the Otter Distributors 2004 Jazz Educator Award for the state of California, the California PTA Honorary Service Award, and the CMEABay Section Gil Freitas Memorial Award for music education. As conductor of the Stanford Live Orchestra, Michael has had the honor of conducting orchestral productions for Gregory Porter, Rufus Wainwright, and Ann Hampton Callaway.
Mr. Galisatus is in demand as a guest conductor and clinician throughout the western United States, including organizations such as the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Stanford Jazz Workshop, California Alliance for Jazz, and a host of others. In addition, Mr. Galisatus has presented workshops abroad, including Japan, China, Norway, Mexico, and Canada.
As a freelance trumpeter in the San Francisco Bay Area, has recorded with Pete Escovedo, andQueen Ida, and has performed with a variety of artists including Dianne Reeves, Tito Puente,Sheila E., Louis Bellson, Natalie Cole, Johnny Mathis, Kenny Washington, Paula West, BarryManilow, Michael Feinstein, Mel Tormé, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The O’Jays, Malo,the Pacific Mambo Orchestra, and many others.
John F. Maltester
John Maltester has been a music educator for almost sixty years, with thirty-seven years as Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Los Medanos College and sixteen years as music professor at Saint Mary’s College. He is also the Music Director Emeritus of the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, and the Artistic Director/Conductor Emeritus of the Diablo Wind Symphony. He is one of only two conductors to conduct both the California State Honor Band and Honor Jazz Band.
He has been a professional trombonist since age 16. His many recognitions include the CMEA Bay Section ‘Lifetime Achievement in Music Education’, and induction into the California Alliance of Jazz Hall of Fame and The Generations of Jazz Hall of Fame.
He is active as a clinician in rehearsal techniques and low brass performance, adjudicator, and guest conductor throughout Australia, the Western United States, Hawaii, and Alaska, and has recently released a new book The Jazz Doctor – Solution-Based Approach to Jazz Ensemble Development, focusing on jazz ensemble rehearsal techniques.
Jeff Jarvis
Jeff Jarvis comes from a family of music educators and has distinguished himself as a trumpeter, composer, professor and music publisher. He is an S.E. Shires trumpet artist and has served as Director of Jazz Studies at the Bob Cole Conservatory at California State University Long Beach since 2005. As a trumpet soloist, adjudicator and clinician, Jeff makes frequent appearances at educational jazz festivals, jazz camps, and music education
conferences. Jarvis composes commissions for school, military, and professional big bands and pops orchestras. He has composed and/or arranged over 175 published works for Kendor Music, Belwin Jazz, iJazz, and UNC Jazz Press. Jeff co-authored The Jazz Educators Handbook with Doug Beach (which is also translated in Japanese), The Chord Voicing Handbook with Matt Harris, and Effective Etudes For Jazz, Volumes 1 & 2 with Mike Carubia.
As a conductor, Jarvis has led honors jazz ensembles in 39 states and 4 Canadian provinces. He is a Past President of the California Alliance for Jazz, served as Vice-President of the International Association for Jazz Education, Music Director of the Central New York Jazz Orchestra from 1998-2005, and was co-owner of Kendor Music Publishing from 1985-2015.
Jeff is a member of the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers and is a Gold Medal winner in the Global Music Awards, an international arts organization that honored him in 2019 for “Lifetime Contributions to Jazz and Jazz Education”.
Jeff’s solo recordings as a jazz trumpeter and composer have won critical acclaim and placed high on national air play charts. His early career as a studio trumpeter encompasses over 100 R&B and disco recordings for such names as Lou Rawls, Michael Jackson, Melba Moore, The O’Jays and more. Live performance credits include Gladys Knight, Van Morrison, Dizzy Gillespie, Louie Bellson, Joe Williams, Benny Golson, Jon Hendricks, Jimmy
Heath, Joe Lovano, Henry Mancini, Slide Hampton, Kevin Mahogany, Grady Tate, Eddie Daniels, Rob McConnell, and Doc Severinsen.
Jeff Jarvis has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and Indonesia. He has been a featured guest soloist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Denver Symphony Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, USAF Airmen of Note, US Army Jazz Ambassadors, US Army Blues, Jazz Knights of the United States Military Academy Band at West Point, USAF Commanders Jazz Band, USAF
Shades of Blue, Riverside Jazz Orchestra, Dallas Jazz Orchestra, Oslo Big Band (Norway), Frank Mantooth Jazz Orchestra, Tom Kubis Big Band and more.