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January 19, 2023

MSU Jazz shines again at the Rudin Jazz Championship

A compilation of MSU’s 2023 awards at the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship.


Music students practicing for a show

MSU jazz students and faculty spent countless hours in rehearsals in order to be as prepared as possible for the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship, including during the weekend of the competition itself.

With a third place finish in the national Rudin Jazz Championship held January 14 and 15 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, the MSU Jazz Studies program has now placed in the top three in each of the first three years of the competition.

In 2020, the program placed third in the inaugural event, then after the cancelation in 2021 due to COVID the program took first place in 2022. This year, the hardworking students of Jazz Orchestra I and the jazz octets earned their place in the finals once again, taking third.

The annual event features up to ten of the nation’s most well-regarded university jazz programs invited to compete in a two-day invitational. MSU students and faculty, along with their peers from eight other programs this year, immersed themselves in intensive rehearsals and workshops culminating in two rounds of competition and a final concert on the Rose Theater stage.

MSU faculty smiling on the red carpet

The tremendous support shown by the attendance of MSU Interim President Teresa K. Woodruff, Ph.D., is greatly appreciated by (from left) MSU jazz faculty Walter Blanding, Randy Napoleon, and Rodney Whitaker, and College of Music Dean James Forger.

Guiding the students through the competition this year were University Distinguished Professor of Jazz Bass and Director of Jazz Studies Rodney Whitaker, Associate Professor of Jazz Guitar and Associate Director of Jazz Studies Randy Napoleon, and Assistant Professor of Jazz Saxophone Walter Blanding, a longtime member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra who joined the MSU jazz faculty this academic year.

“I’m just so proud of this band,” Napoleon said while introducing the students in the jazz combo. “I love working with these young artists so much, I can’t tell you. It’s an inspiration.”

At the awards ceremony, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis presented awards to the bands as well as individual recognition for students from several of the programs. In 2023, North Carolina Central University earned first-place honors, and second-place went to Temple University for the second year in a row.

Thomas Noble playing saxophone on stage

Saxophonist Thomas Noble stands to take his solo on alto during the full band competition on Sunday, January 15.

Individual and section honors went to the following MSU students:

MSU Jazz Orchestra I, finals of the 2023 Jack Rudin Jazz Championship


The Jack Rudin Jazz Championship honors the legacy of Jack Rudin, longtime supporter of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and his founding support for Essentially Ellington, the organization’s signature transformative education program. Launched in 2020, right before the pandemic, the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship provides participating ensembles with quality literature and a forum for celebrating excellence and achievement, while introducing higher education to Jazz at Lincoln Center’s education methodology and philosophy—extending JALC’s educational mission into the sphere of professional development for the next generation of leading jazz artists.