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Students from all school districts to play, sing at All-County Festival at St. Lawrence University Saturday

Posted 1/12/12

CANTON – All across the county, students and their music teachers are busily preparing for this weekend’s All-County Festival at St. Lawrence University. Four performing groups, Junior High Band, …

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Students from all school districts to play, sing at All-County Festival at St. Lawrence University Saturday

Posted

CANTON – All across the county, students and their music teachers are busily preparing for this weekend’s All-County Festival at St. Lawrence University.

Four performing groups, Junior High Band, Junior High String Orchestra, Senior High Chorus, and Senior High Jazz Band, will rehearse with their guest conductors on Friday and again on Saturday morning. Concerts for the groups are all on Saturday afternoon.

Performances are open to the public. The $3 ticket, available at the door, allows audience members to go to all of the performance – or just one. At 1 p.m. in Gulick Theater will be the Jr. High String Orchestra, conducted by Jennifer Kessler and the Jr. High Band, conducted by Keith Ziemba. The Jazz Band, directed by Tim Savage, will hold its concert at 2:15 in Peterson-Kermani Recital Hall. Finally, the Sr. High Chorus, directed by Clayborn Price, will perform at 3 p.m .in Gunnison Chapel.

Canton Central school music teacher Kimberly Busch is general chair of the event, which is being held for the first time on the St. Lawrence University campus.

“I’m hoping that students will be excited to be on such a beautiful campus and to have the opportunity of sharing an exciting music-making experience with people their own age,” Busch said.

According to Potsdam High School junior Aubrey Grudowski, that’s exactly what happens.

"I always look forward to All-County because kids from all over get together to make music. It's so nice to see people from previous years and get to know new people every time! The music is always incredible and there are always great conductors," said Grudowski, who is part of the soprano section in this weekend’s Sr. High Chorus.

St. Lawrence County Music Educators Association (SLCMEA) has previously held this Festival at SUNY Potsdam, but scheduled maintenance at Crane motivated the teachers to look elsewhere for rehearsal and performance venues.

When Kimberly Busch got the go-ahead from St. Lawrence to hold the festival on campus, the planning began in earnest.

Months later, after many hours of work coordinating the festival, things are in place for the weekend.

“Barry Torres (Director of Music Ensembles at SLU) has been the person making the arrangements at SLU; he has been amazing to work with, coordinating dining facilities, rehearsal and performance spaces, and dressing rooms for the students, ” says Busch. “There are three different performance spaces around the campus, in two different buildings.”

Canton Central is donating choral risers, extra music stands, and percussion instruments to accommodate the large number of performers.

Other area music teachers are also helping with the event, from serving as chairpersons for the four different ensembles, to setting up chairs and stands.

One teacher, Tim Savage of Canton Central, is a guest conductor for the Jazz Band this weekend and is looking forward to working with area students.

“I’m very excited – it’s a great group of students, from a great group of teachers,” said Mr. Savage. “The program was picked based on the student response over the past years. This is music that kids have loved; we can’t help but have fun with this!”

Still other teachers served as adjudicators and several will be accompanists for choruses on this and the next festival.

Most every county music teacher is working with students to help them learn the music.

Edwards-Knox K-12 music teacher Carol Strome commented, “It can be difficult to find the extra time necessary to prepare students, but it’s a really good experience for them, so we do it! At All-County, students get to sing or play in an ensemble that’s larger and fuller than the one at our school and they’re challenged musically in different ways than they are at their home school.”

Students are selected for the All-County groups in several different ways. NYSSMA solo scores from last spring and teacher recommendations both serve to help chairpersons select the final slate of members for each group.

To be accepted to the Jazz Choir (which will perform next month at the 2nd All-County Festival, to be held at OFA) and the Jazz Band, students had to audition this past November.

A highlight of the concert will be a “world premiere” of a piece to be performed by the Jr. High Band.

Keith Ziemba, who will conduct his own composition says, "I wrote ‘Three Adirondack Images’ with the All-County Junior High Band in mind. I grew up in Metropolitan NJ, but fell in love with the Adirondacks, and have lived for here 30 years. The first movement, “Mountain Magic,” attempts to show the majesty of the Adirondack High Peaks, where I've spent a lot of time climbing. While writing the second movement, ‘Ancient Forests,’ I had in mind my awe at the old growth forests south of Cranberry Lake in the Five Pond Wilderness area - a truly remote and magnificent area. I tried to capture the serenity and ancientness of this area, where very few people go.

“I've always loved rivers, and for the third movement, I used themes that came to me while thinking of the southern reaches of the wild Grasse River, including some magnificent waterfalls. I also tried to imagine the Racquette River from the time when my father used to visit it back in the 1930s, before the power dams. He described it as a wild, untamed river. I also added just a hint of a folk tune to bind the various themes together."