One Chicago teen’s path to elite jazz stages

Earlier this summer, as spectators around the country cheered on the U.S. Olympic team, Miriam Goroff-Behel was attempting a similarly Herculean feat: a long, exposed sax solo at Carnegie Hall.

Most college-bound students spend their senior summer chilling at home. Not this saxophonist and recent New Trier Township High School grad. After winning an über-competitive nationwide audition that is equivalent to an Olympic trial for musicians, Goroff-Behel toured South Africa with a 22-piece big band associated with Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra (NYO).

As the band’s lead alto — the leader of the saxophone section and its highest voice — Goroff-Behel, who uses they/them pronouns, was selected to play the solo, in “Trane,” by American saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin. The tune’s title references the great saxophonist John Coltrane; Benjamin herself is one of the preeminent alto saxophonists working international jazz stages today. (Benjamin, along with some of the country's top jazz musicians, will be in Chicago this weekend for the 2024 Chicago Jazz Festival, running Thursday through Sunday at the Chicago Cultural Center and Millennium Park.)

Sound like a lot of pressure? You bet. But if Goroff-Behel, 18, felt nervous, they didn’t show it — not at Carnegie Hall, nor at the venues they played in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.

“I was definitely trying to channel Coltrane and Lakecia when I played,” Goroff-Behel said over a video call, the sun setting behind the mountain ridge outside their hotel window in Cape Town. “But I guess what was really going through my mind was, How can I reach the audience through what I'm playing?”

We think of doctors and lawyers as professionals who, rightly, go through years of schooling before practicing professionally. Many musicians do the same — but on top of that, most have been training for their vocation since they were Goroff-Behel’s age or younger.

But this generation’s rising crop of young talents also has had to confront a major interruption: the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced young musicians into a gauntlet of Zoom lessons, isolative practice sessions and YouTube scrolling. “Zoom jazz is really bad. So much about music is connecting with other people. It doesn’t really work, being in your basement on a computer screen,” Goroff-Behel said.

So the return to international touring has been especially welcome. The late summer tour marked the first time any National Youth Orchestra ensemble had toured Africa — an honor that wasn’t lost on the young musicians. Meanwhile, stateside, Carnegie Hall hosted World Orchestra Week (WOW!), a gathering of youth orchestras from around the globe. The U.S. was represented by one of the two NYO orchestras, clad in the program’s signature scarlet trousers.

“These young people represent the best of what our country has to offer,” said NYO Jazz artistic director and trumpeter Sean Jones.

Just how competitive are the national youth ensembles? According to a Carnegie Hall spokesperson, some 250 musicians applied to participate in NYO Jazz alone. Of those, 30 were alto saxophonists, Goroff-Behel’s instrument. Two other Illinoisans also nabbed spots in the coveted jazz group: Ava Siu, a trombonist from Chicago, and Isaac Hanson, also an alto player, of downstate Mahomet.

Like many young musicians, Goroff-Behel first picked up alto saxophone through a school band program, in seventh grade.

“My music teacher laid out a bunch of different instruments for us to try. But I didn't even try saxophone, really. I was like, ‘Yeah, it looks cool, so I'm gonna play it,’ ” Goroff-Behel remembered with a chuckle.

It wasn’t until a few years later, when Goroff-Behel discovered trailblazing bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker, that they realized they wanted to make music not just a hobby but a livelihood. Other alto influences followed: Immanuel Wilkins, an ascendant player with a blisteringly devotional sound, and Lenard Simpson, a stalwart on Chicago stages. In addition to New Trier’s rigorous and extensive music ensembles, Goroff-Behel participated in formative educational programs — at Chicago’s own Midwest Young Artists Conservatory and farther afield in Vail, Colo., and Interlochen, Mich. — that teed them up for a national audition.

The community of musicians, of any age, playing at Goroff-Behel’s level is tiny. So, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Goroff-Behel, Siu and Hanson already knew each other before NYO Jazz. Goroff-Behel and Siu are both New Trier alums and “really close friends,” and all three attended summer programs at Interlochen Arts Academy, where Goroff-Behel met Hanson for the first time.

“It's been great being in a section with him. I'm always learning a lot when I hear him play,” Goroff-Behel said.

The bandleader of NYO Jazz since its founding in 2018, Jones usually curates setlists after assessing the musicians’ “strengths and potential pitfalls.” But this year’s class was so well-rounded that he felt he could push the envelope with repertoire: like the notorious pep section from Duke Ellington’s "Asphalt Jungle" theme, or the intricate R&B, Afrobeat and funk-indebted rhythms of “Kadara” by vocalist Alicia Olatuja, who also toured with the band.

The group also premiered a brand-new work by Sibusiso “Mash” Mashiloane, a South African pianist and composer: his "Isigqi Suite," inspired by various African folk traditions. The NYO Jazzers absorbed those new sounds handily, Jones said.

“This is the first year where there really wasn't a lot of weakness in the band,” he said. “Everyone could solo. Everyone hit the parts well.”

NYO Jazz was supposed to tour South Africa during the pandemic. Their packed itinerary was well worth the wait. The band played alongside other young musicians in Durban and Soweto. They went on a safari in Pilanesberg National Park. Most memorably of all, they visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, where many — like Goroff-Behel — came face to face with that history for the first time.

“One of our biggest takeaways was that South Africa is very much like the U.S. They share a lot of cultural triumphs, as well as some cultural difficulties,” Jones said.

A few weeks after the tour wraps, Goroff-Behel is at home in Wilmette, comfy in a Manhattan School of Music sweatshirt. They’ll leave the sweatshirt at home: After being flooded with acceptances from every music school they applied to, Goroff-Behel is off to Juilliard in just a couple days. They already have plans to meet up with a few NYO Jazz bandmates in New York.

“We're definitely going to play together,” Goroff-Behel said, grinning. “It'll be a great hang.”

You couldn’t fault Goroff-Behel for wanting a break in the sacred few days between their return home and heading off to college. Like so many 18-year-olds, they have friends to see, family to hug — all on top of fending off brutal jetlag.

But when we connect, Goroff-Behel tells me they’ve already gigged this week. Twice. At a show the day before, Goroff-Behel said their goodbyes to an important musical mentor. He imparted one last word of advice.

“I was telling him how I didn’t feel prepared for college. He said, ‘You're never really gonna feel prepared. College is the preparation.’ ”

Goroff-Behel, like so many young musicians, is just getting started.