Hoover's Jazz program has distinguished itself nationally year after year after year. When Kupka first took over the program in the early 1990s there were only a handful of interested students. In a few years kids were beginning to flock to the program.
In '97, Hoover Jazz won its first national jazz award. Most of the performers came from other corners of the world but it didn't seem to matter to a bunch of kids who shared a love of music and experienced the pure joy of performing together. While the world around them was staking out positions and marking territory, they were finding common ground and making sweet music.
In the following years Hoover Jazz won 43 national awards ? more than any comprehensive high school in the nation, and more than the next two schools combined.
The Hoover Jazz Orchestra has won first place in the highly coveted Downbeat Award (given out by the magazine of the same name) seven straight years as the best in the nation. It is a stretch of unsurpassed excellence in the history of these awards. Hoover Jazz has been invited to perform at the International Assn. for Jazz Education's national conferences four times since 1998. (An individual school can only be invited every other year.) These invitations are for the top groups in the world.
Hoover's Jazz program has won the competition to perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival high-school competition five times since 1998. It is an honor that is accorded only to the top 10 groups in the USA. No other school in the nation has ever sent three different groups chosen to compete in the same year.
