The Sacramento State Jazz Singers are one of the two advanced vocal jazz ensembles at Sacramento State, and in the 2008-09 academic year, the group is made of senior jazz studies majors engaging in a special studio music project, in which they are arranging, directing, performing, engineering, and producing their own music. The group has gained a reputation as one of the premier collegiate vocal jazz ensembles in the United States, earning a Down Beat Magazine Student Music Award for Outstanding Performance in the category of Collegiate Jazz Vocal Group in 2005, and co-winning the DB award for Best Collegiate Vocal Jazz Group in the USA and Canada in 2006 (sharing the award with Sac State's "C-Sus"), and winning the award again in 2008. The Jazz Singers specialize in a contemporary vocal jazz sound, taking influences from contemporary instrumental jazz artists and composers as well as vocalists and vocal ensembles. In 2008, the group premiered an ambitious new vocal jazz suite called "Pale Blue Dot", composed by Kerry Marsh specifically for the ensemble. The Jazz Singers were invited to perform the 2005 conference of the International Association for Jazz Education in Long Beach, CA. They have also been featured at CMEA and ACDA conventions, and have been guest performers for several regional jazz festivals. They are actively involved in outreach to high school vocal jazz programs, giving performances and clinics to young musicians throughout California.
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