West Valley College’s Jazz Singers win the Reno Jazz Festival! Congratulations to the students and to Michelle Hawkins, director of the WVC Jazz Choir ‘Synchronicity’ which won the prestigious, nationally-recognized Reno Jazz Festival held at University of Nevada, Reno this past Saturday! In addition, congratulations to Music major Zach Yaholkovsky, who won “Outstanding College Vocalist!” Singer Tom Watt put it nicely in his Facebook post:

“Synchronicity. We placed 3rd in 2011, and 2nd in 2013 in the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival, a super difficult and extremely competitive state competition. Then TWO times, we take 1st place in Reno, a national competition. (’11 and ’13). Synchro swooped two consecutive nationwide Downbeat Magazine awards for best collegiate vocal group for recorded performance. To say the very least, I’m nearly inexplicably proud to be in this multi-award winning group for three consecutive years. We owe it to our incredible director, Michelle Hawkins, and to ourselves. I’m just glad this has been a part of my life. Congratulations, you guys.”

 

Congratulations INDEED!