High school band festival to be held at URI
Festival concert to feature guest conductor Ray Cramer
KINGSTON, R.I. -- January 8, 2001 -- Ninety-five students from 28 different
high schools will take part in the University of Rhode Island's 11th annual
Southern New England High School Honor Band Festival on Friday, Jan. 19
and Saturday, Jan. 20.
The festival includes rehearsals both days, a Collage Concert featuring
URI ensembles at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, master classes for the students and
their directors on Saturday afternoon, and the Festival Concert at 7 p.m.
on Saturday. All events will be held in the Fine Arts Center Recital Hall
on the Kingston Campus and are free and open to the public.
The student musicians, enrolled in school band programs from grades
10, 11 and 12 in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, were selected
from among nearly 300 who auditioned to participate in the festival.
This year's guest conductor at the Festival Concert is Ray E. Cramer,
director of bands at the Indiana University School of Music and a sought-after
guest conductor both nationally and internationally. Under his leadership,
the Indiana University Wind Ensemble has earned an international reputation
for outstanding musical performances over the last 20 years.
Cramer earned degrees from Western Illinois University and the University
of Iowa and has served as national president of the College Band Directors
National Association and president of the Indiana Bandmasters Association
and the Big Ten Band Directors Association. He is currently president of
the Midwest Clinic, an international band and orchestra convention held
in Chicago each year.
Festival coordinator Donald Smith, URI assistant director of bands,
says the program for the concert "offers a wonderful variety of stimulating
music." Included are Richard Straus's "Koenigsmarsch,"
which features fanfare trumpets and other added brass elements as arranged
by Roger Barrett; a fast-paced march entitled "Whip and Spur"
arranged by guest conductor Cramer; "Sun Dance" composed
by Frank Ticheli; and "Mosaics," commissioned in 1999 by
the Midwest Clinic in celebration of a century of music education in America.
Since the first URI Southern New England High School Honor Band Festival
in 1991, the festival has grown rapidly and has featured some of the most
prestigious guest conductors in America. Conductor of the 2000 festival
was Cmdr. Lewis J. Buckley, director of the United States Coast Guard Band.
The Saturday afternoon master classes for the student members of the
festival band will be taught by URI Music Department faculty, while their
directors will attend a discussion by the guest conductor. The director's
discussion, "Podium Personality," is open to the community. The
session will begin at 3:30 p.m.
Students from the following Rhode Island high schools will participate
in the festival: Burrillville, Chariho, Coventry, Cranston East, Cumberland,
East Greenwich, East Providence, Johnston, LaSalle, Middletown, Moses Brown,
Mt. Hope, Mt. St. Charles, North Kingstown, North Smithfield, Ponaganset,
Portsmouth, Portsmouth Abbey, Rogers, South Kingstown, Scituate, Smithfield,
Tiverton, and Woonsocket.
Also participating are students attending Bridgewater-Raynham, Joseph
Case, and Nipmuc Regional high schools in Massachusetts and Northwest
Catholic School in Hartford, Conn.
For additional information about the festival, call the URI Music Department
at 401-874-2431 or Donald Jay Smith, festival coordinator, at 401-874-2799.
For Information: Donald Smith 874-2799, Todd McLeish 874-7892
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