Burnside High School's Big Band has established itself as New Zealand's finest high school big band, winning Gold and "Best Big Band" titles at the ARA Jazz Quest every year since 2013, at the NZSM Wellington Jazz Festival on each of their 5 appearances and at the Manawatu Jazz Festival on their only visit in 2018. They were also the national winners of the 2022 and 2023 Essential NZ Jazz Band (Jazz Band-it) competition.

In addition to their competition success the band enjoys regular performances closer to home, especially those as part of the Christchurch Big Band Festival which they have given every year since 2012, including sell out "Big Band and Strings" concerts in 2016, 2018 and 2023.

Many of the band are members of Burnside's Specialist Music Programme, a unique programme in New Zealand that provides high level music education for especially talented young musicians, and the band has a proud history of students selected for the New Zealand Youth Jazz Orchestra.

This gig is part of a week-long tour of the upper South Island by the Burnside Music Department and tonight the band will be joined by local young musicians from Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls, with whom they collaborated earlier in the week.