Students at Hill Magnet School are taking an unusual approach to learning jazz. They’re practicing their skills on the fiddle. In November they put what they learned to the test when they performed in concert with Bob Phillips, a nationally-known conductor and music educator.

Hill orchestra students used Phillips’ methods to learn to play complicated rhythms, said Chris Hudnell, the school’s orchestra teacher. “Jazz rhythms are very difficult, and traditionally string methods haven’t gotten into that because it looks too difficult,” Hudnell said. “There is room for their learning to improvise.”

About 50 orchestra students from Hill and Glenn High School took part in workshops with Phillips before performing in concert with him later that night.  The concert was titled “Fiddles, Jazz and Zombies.” Phillips lives in Michigan and is the co-author of two successful series of books, “Fiddlers Philharmonic” and “Jazz Philharmonic.” He is an expert in the use or folk fiddling and jazz in string orchestras. Phillips served as an artist-in-residence while in Winston-Salem.