On Friday night of Labor Day weekend, trumpet player Dominick Farinacci kicked off this year’s Monty Alexander Jazz Festival, presented by Jazz on the Chesapeake, a program of Chesapeake Chamber Music. Before he opened at the Avalon Theatre, however, Farinacci shared his extraordinary trumpet playing with over 300 St. Michaels and Easton high school and middle school students at the Avalon Theatre in Easton, as well as with students at Mace’s Lane Middle School in Cambridge. The YouthReach concert was part of Chesapeake Chamber Music’s community outreach programs offered throughout the year. These concerts were funded in part by the Talbot County Arts Council and Dorchester Center for the Arts.

Farinacci’s horn recalls early Miles Davis and Chet Baker, among other trumpet greats. Dominick was recently featured on NPR’s Jazz Rising Stars and recognized by The New York Times as “having the prepossessing charm and lyrical instinct of a jazz pop-star.”

In photo: Trumpeter Dominick Farinacci demonstrates jazz trumpet techniques to over 300 Talbot County public school students at the Avalon Theater and to students at Mace’s Lane Middle School in Cambridge to kick off the Monty Alexander Jazz Festival on Labor Day weekend. (Photo courtesy of Jerry Michael)