All-State musicians
Music conference treats Spa City
The best high school and college musicians return to Hot Springs this week for the annual Arkansas All-State Music Conference at the Hot Springs Convention Center and Bank of the Ozarks Arena.
Rehearsals will begin Wednesday. The state’s top high school performers will close the conference with performances on Saturday.
The Arkansas Choral Directors Association all-state choirs will perform in Hall A Saturday. The ArkCDA will hold a 50th anniversary celebration starting at 11:30 a.m.
The male chorus will perform at noon under the direction of Derrick Fox, director of choral activities and assistant professor of music at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. The female chorus will perform at 12:30 p.m. under the direction of Michael Dye, choral director at Niceville High School in Florida.
The state’s top-rated high school singers were selected for the mixed choir. Gary Morris, visiting instructor of music and director of choirs at Arkansas Tech University, will lead the mixed choir concert at 1 p.m.
The final Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association concerts of the week will also take place midday Saturday in Bank of the Ozarks Arena. The orchestra will perform first at 11 a.m. under the direction of Jean Montès, associate professor of music and director of orchestras for Loyola University New Orleans.
The concert band show will begin at noon under the direction of Cynthia Lansford, a retired K-12 music instructor in Texas. The 1 p.m. symphonic band show will be directed by Kerry Taylor, director of bands for Westlake High School and Eanes Independent School District in Austin, Texas.
Top-rated high school band performers were placed in the wind symphony. Their concert will begin at 2 p.m. and be directed by David Vandewalker, coordinator of performing arts for Fulton County Schools in Atlanta, Ga.
All performances are free and open to the public. The first shows will begin on Thursday.
Josh Jackson, director of bands, will lead the Harmony Grove High School band at 8 a.m. Thursday in Bank of the Ozarks Arena. The Paragould High School Pride Band will follow under the direction of Richie Williams, director of bands.
Clinics, meetings and rehearsals will continue through all four days until the final concerts on Saturday. Students in the all-state jazz bands and chamber orchestra are scheduled for the earliest rehearsals
on Wednesday and the first evening shows on Thursday.
Philip Mann, music director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, will direct the chamber orchestra in Horner Hall at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. University of Arkansas music instructor Rick Salonen will then lead the second all-state jazz band. The first all-state jazz band will close the evening under the direction of Michael Worthy, associate professor of music at the University of Mississippi.
The state’s intercollegiate choir and band are scheduled to perform Friday afternoon. Julie Yu-Oppenheim, director of choral studies at Kansas State University in Manhattan, will lead the choir performance in Hall A from 1-2:30 p.m. Eric Rombach-Kendall, professor of music at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, will direct the band performance in Hall D from 3-3:45 p.m.
ASBOA will present two bands in its junior high honor concerts in Hall D from 4:15-5:20 p.m. Tina Cornwell, music and band director, will lead the Dardanelle Middle School band. The Chaffin Junior High School band will follow and be directed by Teresa Segress, band director.
Three bands will perform in the evening choir honor concerts in Hall A starting at 7:30 p.m. Performing will be Ramsey Junior High School, Keith Reeves; Springdale HarBer High School, Randy Erwin; and the University of Central Arkansas, John Irwin.