Above, Knox College Jazz Ensemble performs in Galesburg's Orpheum Theatre during the Knox-Rootabaga Jazz Festival.

The Knox-Rootabaga Jazz Festival has received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, enabling the annual festival to expand into local schools, and to offer free admission for its headliner concert.

"The 'Challenge America' award is the largest single grant that the festival has received in its 35 years, and it will allow us to enlarge and enhance our programming in meaningful ways," said the festival's director, Nikki Malley, associate professor of music and director of jazz studies at Knox.

The 2015 Knox-Rootabaga Jazz Festival, April 9-11, will feature the Lowdown Brass Band, Anat Cohen Quartet, Knox Alumni Big Band, Knox Faculty and Friends Combo, and the Knox Jazz Ensemble.

The in-school program will feature a traveling troupe of jazz artists led by Daniel Leahy, a pianist, vocalist, arranger and producer. Leahy and his group, which includes Knox College faculty and area musicians, will tour public schools in Galesburg during the week leading up to the festival in April, performing and teaching students about jazz and improvisation.

The grant also will allow the festival to offer free admission to the headliner concert in the Orpheum Theatre, featuring the Anat Cohen Quartet and Knox Jazz Ensemble.

"Opening the concert free to the community, will provide the opportunity for more people to engage with the arts , experiencing the Orpheum and the energy of live jazz," Malley said. "This is especially important with improvised music. There are dynamics that go on between performers, and between performers and the audience, that can not be communicated in a recording."

Below: Daniel Leahy with the Knox Faculty and Friends Combo, and other highlights from the Knox-Rootabaga Jazz Festival

More photos: The Knox-Rootabaga Jazz Festival in 2014... and the Alumni Big Band in 2013...

The 2015 Knox-Rootabaga Jazz Festival, April 9-11

• Lowdown Brass Band
• Anat Cohen Quartet
• Knox Alumni Big Band
• Faculty and Friends Combo
• Knox Jazz Ensemble
• Daniel Leahy Sextet

Challenge America grants, awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, are $10,000 matching grants to support projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved populations whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability. The NEA awarded a total of $1.63 million in Challenge America. A complete listing of Challenge America grants is on the NEA website at arts.gov.