Approximately 27% of all jazz musicians are women, according to Jazz Empowers. That number from 2021, while small, is a 200% increase from the estimated 9% in 2012. The Jacobs School of Music Department of Jazz Studies aims to minimize this gap even further with its “IU JazzGirls Day” on Saturday.
Sarah Cline, the jazz program director at Berkley High School, held the first “JazzGirls Day” at the school in California in 2012. Since the program’s inception, “JazzGirls” events have spread across the country. Jacobs associate professor of music Natalie Boeyink first encountered Cline’s idea at a jazz conference and said she appreciated how the event targets middle and high schoolers in particular.
“Especially when you're young, not everyone sees women playing jazz,” Boeyink said. “It's to show them you have a place in jazz, you can do this, but to create a space where they get to meet each other, because so often you are maybe the only girl in your jazz ensemble or maybe one of two or three.”
Boeyink said she left the conference inspired, particularly by its focus on middle school musicians, and she introduced the initiative to the jazz department at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, where she worked at the time. Boeyink said female participation in jazz bands tends to exponentially decrease as students move from middle school to high school and then decrease even more with the jump from high school to college.
“By doing ‘JazzGirls Day’ and putting these middle school and high school jazz players in front of or alongside our IU jazz women and non-binary majors, I want them to see not a bunch of women over 40, but to see that there are people that look like them who have their experience closer in age so that they can kind of have big siblings,” Boeyink said.
When Boeyink began working at IU for the 2023-24 school year, she knew she wanted to bring “JazzGirls Day” to Bloomington.
It took a year of planning, but IU’s inaugural “JazzGirls Day” will happen on Saturday, hosting more than 20 girls from across the state. The event will occupy three rooms in the Musical Arts Center, which will function as breakout rooms for the musicians to learn and rehearse in during the day.
The workshop will divide students by their age and skill level to try and consider the potential five-year age gap between the attendees. The musicians will spend their day learning music, meeting peers and attending a master class before the event ends with a concert at 8 p.m. to showcase the work and progress made during the day. The concert is open to the public and will be held at the Musical Arts Center.
The workshops will be led by a combination of select Jacobs faculty and current Jacobs students, all female or non-binary. Adjunct lecturer in music Rachel Caswell will be working at the event, leading workshops in jazz vocals and jazz theory overall.
“There’s something very nurturing about being in a space with other women, especially when you're 14 or 15,” Caswell said. “At that age, you’re still figuring out who you are, and it helps to be surrounded by people who understand your experiences and can support you in ways that a typical jazz band setting might not."
Caswell and Boeyink attended Bloomington High School North, though at different times, and studied under band director Janis Stockhouse. Both Caswell and Boeyink cite Stockhouse as the reason they feel such confidence as women in jazz but recognize that very few have the chance to have a female musical director.
“If you cannot see it, how are you supposed to know that you can do it? That’s really at the core of what we’re trying to do with ‘JazzGirls Day’— show young musicians that they belong in this space and that there are women thriving in jazz. It’s all about visibility and representation,” Caswell said.
Registration for the event has officially closed but any remaining interested students are encouraged to email Boeyink at her IU email — nboeyink@iu.edu — and she will work to accommodate requests.
