This past spring at Kent State, I completed a research study entitled”Student and Director Perceptions of an All-County Band Festival”. I have included a write-up of the research findings on my Research in Music Education page. If you have any questions about the study, feel free to ask here or send it via Twitter (@travisjweller).
It was a great day yesterday at Marion Center with the PMEA District 3 Junior High Honor Band. I was able to share some good music with a great bunch of students and directors – including “Supsended Animation” (Patrick Burns), “Marching Song” (Holst), and the world debut of “For the Love a Soldier”. The 6th Grade Honor Band was under the direction of friend and colleague Mike Grady – it was great catching up with him and hearing the debut of his “Gift for Band”.
Be sure to bump on over to Travis J. Weller on myspace to hear the PMEA District 5 Band recording of “Moravian Dance”. Jack Anderson did a great job with the band, and I am so proud of the students for what they did with the music. The piece will be available from FJH this summer.
I am honored to have “Moravian Dance” make its world debut on Friday, February 11, 2011 by the students in the PMEA District 5 Band. Being an educator in this district and having worked alongside their directors (many whom are great friends and colleagues) I am eagerly looking forward to their performance. There are many fine directors in this district and I know their students are up to the challenge of this program. Mr. Jack Anderson is the guest conductor, and Steve Garay, Jim Scanga, and Donnie White are the on-site hosts for the event. I am indebted to these gentlemen for asking me to write a piece to be debuted at the festival, and their long-time support and friendship is a blessing each day.
Tuesday was awesome! I was able to take all 3 of the concert bands at Mercer to the PMEA Instrumental Adjudication festival at Westminster College. I am very pleased with the groups and their performance. Pennsylvania’s adjudication circuit allows directors to choose music from the state list (which NEEDS serious revamping PMEA!!! Not that I dwell on the problems within the list…) and prepare 2 to 3 selections. Those selections are then evaluated by a panel of judges, usually a group of collegiate educators. After the prepared selections are completed, the group is then asked to perform a sight-reading session. In a nutshell this is what happens: The ensemble is given music one grade level below what they performed on the prepared section. The director and ensemble have 2 minutes to silently read the piece. After that time passes, the director can talk with the ensemble for 3 minutes. They may speak parts, sing parts, clap parts, talk about key and time changes, tempo, style – whatever – but they cannot play a note. At the end of that time, the ensemble is to play the piece from start to finish. It is a really great exercise and one that I prepped my groups for by doing regularly over the last two months (I even had my Middle School group do it in that format for a live audience at our February concert).
Now in my thirteenth year of teaching, I have officially hosted 12 high school band shows, 4 all county band festivals, 10 jazz festivals, and by the end of this week will have hosted my second PMEA District 5 Band Festival. I made a decision long ago that one area in which I would make an effort to improve the quality of my band program would be to host music festivals of different sorts so that my students could see up close the quality of other bands and musicians. This does require an amazing amount of patience, tenacity, vision, and a great deal of planning. I want the festivals to be a positive statement for music education, an opportunity for musical and social growth for the musicians, and an educational self-evaluation for my own teaching, the ensembles, and the students.
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