INTERLOCHEN, Mich. – Jeremy Viner, 16, of Orono, is a member of the Interlochen Arts Academy Jazz Ensemble, which is one of only 15 groups invited to participate in the prestigious Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival in mid-May at New York City’s Lincoln Center.

The festival’s invited bands will vie for more than $11,000 in cash awards at the competition finals, produced May 17-19 by Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. More than 1,200 high school jazz bands had the opportunity to enter the Essentially Ellington competition. Of those, 133 bands submitted a recording of three Duke Ellington songs prepared from scores provided by the competition’s organizers.

The Essentially Ellington competition’s three-day festival will begin Saturday, May 17, when the finalist bands arrive for workshops, rehearsals, a banquet dinner and jam sessions with members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. In the two-part competition Sunday, May 18, and Monday, May 19, in Avery Fisher Hall, a panel of judges – including Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis – will assess each band’s performance of three Ellington works. In an evening concert May 19, the top three bands will perform alone with Marsalis as soloist, followed by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra performing an all-Ellington set.