Wakatipu High School's musical talent continues to dazzle peers around the South, as big band Best Served Chilled won the best band award and two awards for individual merit at the annual Southland Secondary Schools Jazz Festival last week.
The nine-strong jazz combo competed against bands from seven other high schools before an audience of about 200 people at the Ascot Park Hotel.
All bands played the same test piece, In Walked Bud by Thelonious Monk. The Wakatipu musicians followed up with Alexander's Ragtime Band by Irving Berlin and I Just Want to Make Love to You, made popular by singer Etta James.
The jazz combo won the Alastair Monteath Award for Best Band, as youth jazz musicians from Wakatipu High School had done for the last seven years out of 10, music teacher Alison Price said.
The combo also won hundreds of dollars in prize money.
Pupil Ngawai Davis (17) won the best vocalist award and pupil Simon Petre (17) won the best drummer award.
