Trio to play in US boot camp

You could call them the new Dave Brubeck Trio. Three Perth teenagers are among the first musicians outside the US to be invited to a prestigious jazz boot camp run by the foundation of the late jazz legend Dave Brubeck.

WA Youth Jazz Orchestra players Ben Clapin, Alistair Peel and James Van de Ven, all students at the WA Academy of Performing Arts, will join three British and 18 American musicians at the Brubeck Institute Summer Jazz Colony in California in August.

"It is scary to be the first Australians to go over but what an awesome opportunity," Clapin said. "It is really exciting to get involved in what is happening in the American jazz scene and to play with people who are insanely better than me.”

Part of their travel costs will be met by the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation but WAYJO is seeking to raise another $5000 in online donations through crowd-funding platform Pozible.

Clapin, an 18-year-old saxophonist, bass player Peel, also 18, and trombonist Van de Ven, 19, will spend a week of intensive workshops, concerts and coaching sessions in Lake Tahoe with some of the best jazz musicians and educators in the world.

“We would never see it as a boot camp,” Clapin said. “It is a lot of stuff we want to be doing and there is a lot of jamming into the night.”

WAYJO general manager Fiona Symonds said their selection reflected the high quality of the jazz scene in Perth.