MCI WorldCom Celebrates 15th Consecutive Year of Sponsorship;
Continues Financial Support of Festival's Jazz Education
Fund
MONTEREY, Calif., September 17, 1999 -- For its 15th
consecutive year, MCI WorldCom returns to the Monterey Peninsula as the
corporate host of the Monterey Jazz Festival Presented By MCI WorldCom
(Sept. 17-19), the longest running jazz festival in the world. As is
the tradition at Monterey, the 42nd annual edition of the Monterey Jazz
Festival Presented By MCI WorldCom captures the true spirit of jazz
through performances by critically acclaimed professional artists and
California's finest high school musicians and vocalists. The
Festival embraces the colorful and legendary history of this uniquely
American art form and introduces jazz to a new generation of fans.
Since becoming the Monterey Jazz Festival's title sponsor 15 years
ago, MCI WorldCom, through the MCI WorldCom Foundation, has contributed
nearly a half million dollars to the Festival's Jazz Education
Fund. The mission of the MCI WorldCom Foundation is to be a leader in
education and establish MCI WorldCom as a valued corporate citizen that
prudently invests in the communities where the company does business.
The Jazz Education Fund underwrites jazz music education programs for
middle school and high school students. The program provides
instruments, sheet music, curricula, lectures, workshops, and a
year-round clinicians program with professional musicians teaching
students how to play jazz. "At its heart, the Monterey Jazz
Festival is an organization of volunteers dedicated to sharing their
appreciation of this special music with students," said Bob
Hartnett, president, MCI WorldCom Global Accounts. "At MCI
WorldCom, we believe that the Arts are an important part of every
student's arts education. We appreciate the Festival's
commitment to providing a portion of that education and are proud to
support their efforts."
In conjunction with the sponsorship this
year, MCI WorldCom will again be demonstrating its long distance phone
service at calling booths located on the Festival grounds. MCI
WorldCom, which has had offices in California since 1975, employs more
than 3,629 people at 193 sales, service and network operations
facilities in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco, San
Jose and numerous other cities.
MCI WorldCom is a global leader in
communications services with 1998 revenues of more than $30 billion and
established operations in over 65 countries encompassing the Americas,
Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions. MCI WorldCom is a premier provider
of facilities-based and fully integrated local, long distance,
international and Internet services. MCI WorldCom's global
networks, including its state-of-the-art pan-European network and
transoceanic cable systems, provide end-to-end high-capacity
connectivity to more than 40,000 buildings worldwide. MCI WorldCom is
traded on NASDAQ under WCOM. For more information on MCI WorldCom,
visit the World Wide Web at www.wcom.com.
