Grand County High School junior and upright bass player Alan was recently selected to join the 2016 Utah All-State Jazz Band, which will perform in St. George in February. The All-State Jazz Band includes 20 musicians from across the state, and features just one upright bass player.
Snow, who is the son of Wade and Tammy Snow, is a multi-instrumentalist and singer who began to play guitar in third grade. He studied guitar with BEACON Moab Strings Program Director Nanci Flesher. On Flesher’s recommendation, he began studying upright bass four years ago, and he currently plays with the BEACON Moab String Orchestra. Snow played sousaphone for two years with the Grand County High School Marching Band and was in the award-winning 2014 marching band. Snow is beginning his third year as a member of both the Grand County High School Jazz and Concert bands.
Snow frequently performs as a singer and bass player with other local musicians at Moab Backyard Theater and other area venues. He studies upright and electric bass with Palisade Middle School and Palisade High School Orchestra Director Troy Raper in Colorado, as well as with Green River High School Band Director Nathan O’Bryant.
He has volunteered as a teaching assistant for the past three years in the BEACON beginning strings classes, and has three private students on half-size and quarter-size bass. For the past two summers, Snow has also interned at the Moab Folk Festival’s office.
On Tuesday, Dec. 15, Moab Music Festival Events and Education Outreach Coordinator Erin Groves presented Snow with a commendation and congratulations for his inclusion in the Utah All-State Jazz Band. The card he received included messages the festival’s board of trustees, as well as a note from Robert Black, a bass player, frequent Moab Music Festival performer and full professor at the Hart School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut. “Talent combined with hard work always pays off – You are living proof,” Black wrote.
Alan Snow will perform in St. George in February
