It's festival time for young musicians
Bigfork HIgh School Band performs in the Flathead High School Auditorium on Thursday afternoon during the District No. 1 Music Festival.
Flathead's John Collins and Annie Marshall perform "Who Has Seen The Wind" together.
Glacier's Sonya Brosten and Elliott VanAllen listen to judge Eletra Vandeberg give them pointers on how to improve their vocal performance.
Glacier's Sonya Brosten flips through sheet music to "Treasures for Two" before performing the song in a duet with Elliott VanAllen.
This week, 1,500 high school students from across Northwest Montana descended on the Flathead Valley to test their musical chops.
Today, students from Flathead, Glacier, Bigfork, Columbia Falls, Whitefish, Polson, Libby, Troy and Lincoln County high schools are in their third and final day of the District No. 1 Music Festival.
Flathead band director Allen Slater and choir director Kevin Allen-Schmid are hosting the event, which has included performances at both Kalispell high schools and First Presbyterian Church.
Participating students have been part of extracurricular music events throughout the school year, Slater said.
While the festival is a culmination of all that the music students have learned this year, local music teachers make sure the young musicians know the experience is not a win-lose situation.
“It’s not a competition. It’s different from sports in that way,” Allen-Schmid said. “We want them to do as well as they can and remember that it’s a learning experience.”
At the festival, students perform in solos or ensembles for experienced adjudicators, who rate each performance and provide feedback. The ratings are not unlike an A to F grading scale, Allen-Schmid said, except instead of letter grades, students receive a numbered score.
The lowest is a 5, a poor rating. The highest is a 1, or superior rating.
“Kids usually don’t get all the way to festival and perform if they’re anything less than a 3,” Allen-Schmid said. “They will have their songs memorized and will have performed at recitals we hold before festival. They tend to earn 1’s or 2’s or 3’s.”
Those scores will be given by one of 15 trained adjudicators brought in for the event, Slater said.
All are experienced in working with students and in music, he added. They might be retired band directors or have master’s degrees in music or teach music at the college level.
“What they do have with them is the knowledge, background, techniques and abilities to work with kids,” he said.
The adjudicators come from all over the inland Northwest and provide important feedback to students, Slater said.
They are “independent and unbiased, if you will,” he said. “They tell us, ‘Yes, your musicians are at this caliber,’ or, ‘They’re close,’ or, ‘They’re not doing well.’”
Like his co-host, Slater said local students tend to perform well at the district festival.
“Fortunately for our kids, they very seldom get into the poor rating area,” he said.
Those who earn superior ratings are eligible to perform at the state music festival May 6 and 7 in Missoula. Students aren’t required to go to state but may choose to take advantage of the opportunity, Allen-Schmid said.
“It’s not a tournament, not a trophy chase. They’re not going to let anybody down” if they choose not to go to the state festival, he said. “It’s another learning experience, [a chance to get] another judge’s feedback.”
Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.