Guimarães Jazz's educational activities are one of the festival's most important dimensions and the project with the Big Band and the String Ensemble of ESMAE, currently one of Portugal's most prestigious jazz schools, is, in parallel with the workshops, one of the main axis of that pedagogical vocation. This partnership, which began in 2012, continues to propose a residency and collaboration between ESMAE's students and the composer invited to direct them, a role that, in 2017, will be assumed by the saxophonist Jeff Lederer, a well-known musician of the festival’s audience, and by New York based vocalist Mary LaRose. Therefore, Guimarães Jazz will provide again to a group of young musicians a highly demanding creative and professional experience, by putting them in contact with the methods of musical composition practiced by two of the most reputed musicians of New York’s jazz scene, with a relevant experience directing large jazz ensembles.