Music News

Connecticut (5/05)

The Connecticut Music Educators Association held their 61st Annual In-Service Conference in Stamford, CT on March 17-19. An important legislative bill requiring graduating high school students to have one credit in the arts or one-half credit in the arts and one-half credit in arts-related multimedia communications technology is slated for an April vote. Connecticut will be hosting a National Institute on Designing Standard-Based Curriculum and Assessment in the Arts on June 27-July 1, 2005. The Connecticut Association of Schools held their annual Arts Awards Banquet on March 28 to recognize two outstanding high school students in the visual and performing arts from each high school in the state of Connecticut. The event is sponsored by the Westfield Corporation and features nationally known speakers and scholarship awards.

Illinois (5/05)

The Illinois High School Association has been busy this spring with the Solo/Ensemble Music State Contest March 5th and the Organizational Music State Contest set for April 15 and 16th. As our office is continuing to make technological advancements, we are working with our member schools entered in music to use an online download. (IHSA.org under the music link - http://www.igsmasouth.org/Downloads/IHSA/IHSA_download.html). With approximately 500 schools involved in solo and ensemble contest and 317 involved in organizational contest our state is always faced with the challenge to make entering and hosting contest a friendly process for all involved. We offered training in using the software at the Illinois Music Educator Conference in January. As useful as the program is regarding the time saved from hand scheduling and scoring, there are still ways we can make the program easier, and that is our charge for future contest.

Missouri (5/05)

MSHSAA is currently updating the MSHSAA Prescribed Graded Music List and reviewing the current memorization rule for solos on the "A" list for woodwind, brass and percussion. A subcommittee met in January to discuss and made recommendations to the Music Advisory Committee, which will meet in May.

MSHSAA plans to add a visual component to the Music Adjudicators Training seminars. The association needs to know how other states accomplish this without violating copyright laws and how they keep the identity of the performers anonymous. Please forward any information to email@mshsaa.org and list Davine Davis in the subject heading.

Montana (5/05)

A forum was held in January during the Montana High School Association's annual meeting to study issues relating to state solo and ensemble festivals.
The number of entries at the festivals continues to rise, in part because of rising music enrollments throughout the state. The increase in entries, particularly ensembles of 12 to 16, is creating logistical problems for festival hosts. Many of the available adjudication centers are not large enough to accommodate a 16 voice/piece ensemble and still have space available for spectators and other performers. Montana uses a block system which requires students to remain in the adjudication center for the full hour block to which they are assigned, which is intended to expose participants to a number of different performers from different schools. In some cases, festival hosts have no choice but to assign 3 to 5 of the larger ensembles to a classroom designed for 30 students. Crowding then defeats the intent of the block, because there is simply no room for as many as 80 participants to remain in the adjudication center. Instead, they are forced to perform and leave the center to make room for another ensemble.
While no specific solutions were arrived at in January, the information gathered from stakeholders who attended the forum will be used to develop solutions to be implemented for the 2006 festivals.

Nebraska (5/05)

Nebraska Music Educators Association (NMEA) and Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) worked together to revise the District Music Contest adjudication forms over the past few years. In May 2004, the NSAA District Music Coordinators voted in favor of implementing the revised adjudication forms with the self-training adjudicator guidelines. In November 2004, the NMEA membership voted to accept the revised forms and self-training guidelines also. The new adjudication forms will be used for the 2005 District Music Contest.

NMEA and NSAA worked together throughout this three-year process with input from the Nebraska Bandmasters Association and the Nebraska Choral Directors Association. Teamwork and good working relationships between the music organizations and NSAA made this a positive experience for all with better consistency in adjudcation across the state.

Texas (5/05)

Participation in Texas music events continue to grow with total participation approaching one half million students. It is particularly noteworthy that vocal programs in community and rural schools are on the upswing as evidenced by a 300% increase in small school vocal participation in the State Solo and Ensemble Contest.

Texas remains committed to seeking new ways to use web based technology for contest entry and administration. At present, the State Level Solo and Ensemble Contest is run completely on line. All music regions in the state (there are 24) have developed their own web sites and virtually all entry and scheduling is taking place on-line. In the coming year a program will be in place that will allow for all state reports to be filed on line and stored in a central database.

In the fall of 2005, the Texas Prescribed Music List will be available on the UIL web site. It will appear in a FileMaker Pro data base that allows for a broad variety of sorts by title, classification. composer and instrumentation.

Vermont (5/05)

The Vermont Music Educators Association (VMEA) has updated their Constitution and Bylaws and will vote on their approval in May. The updates are online at www.vmea.org, the association's Web site that has been recently redone by Aron Garceau, music educator in Sheldon, VT and District I President.

The 2nd annual Vermont Band Festival will take place on April 12th hosted by Harwood Union High School in Duxbury and organized by Christina Toner, music educator at South Burlington High and All State Assistant Festival Director.

The All State Music Festival Scholarships will be awarded at the 78th All State Festival in May (hosted by Middlebury Union High School this year). A record number of awards were earned this year especially notable in the Jazz and Composition categories. The highest rated student composition will be performed at a special Scholarship Concert during the All State Festival and this year, that will include two student compositions. Karen Boltax from Montpelier High's "Strange Interlude" for orchestra and Michael Hardin from Harwood Union's "Blues for Dr. Green" for jazz combo will both be featured in the All State Festival along with performances by the eight other scholarship recipients.

The VMEA is planning to conduct a day-long Children's Choir Festival in conjunction with the association's annual Fall Conference. The Festival will involve more than 60 elementary choral students working together in rehearsal all day with a culminating afternoon concert. The rehearsals will be open for teachers to observe during the day and will be lead by a noted children's choir director and guest conductor, Andrea Bonamico. She is the director of the Bundy Center for the Arts in Waitsfield, VT and a noted vocal teacher, choral conductor and performer. The VMEA's Fall Conference is on October 20th at Essex High School in Essex Junction, VT.

Washington (5/05)

Washington has been working hard to keep music as a part of the assessments. No Child Left Behind, while paying lip service to the arts, has focused so stringently on testing that schools are altering their schedules and curriculums to align with the tested subjects that have publicly reported results. Required courses in WASL preparation (WASL is our state's mandatory test) have been implemented in some schools, and those courses invariably replace electives.

Last year WMEA worked with WEA (state affiliate of NEA) to bring together the leadership in subject areas that were excluded from the WASL testing. In a one-day meeting, these two associations unified with a proposal that Classroom-Based Assessments be implemented for those subject areas, that they be mandatory and that they be reported. The state Legislature and the governor were so impressed with our solidarity that they accepted our proposal and it is now state law. While the implementation is still a few years off, development of the assessments has begun and reached the pilot stage.

None of us wants more testing of any kind, but we must be practical and realize that we test what we value, and we value what we test. The money follows the test results. So without becoming full-blown WASL tests, we have been able to include music (and other subject areas) in an environment that can ensure their long-range stability in the curriculum so that students can reap the benefits of a broad-based education.