The eighth annual UW–Platteville Tri-State Honors Band Festival concerts will take place in the Center for the Arts Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 4 p.m.
More than 150 high school students were nominated from 38 schools to perform during the concerts. Of those, 95 were selected to perform.
Friday evening will feature a Montage concert featuring UW–Platteville’s music faculty and Jazz I Ensemble. The Saturday concert features UW–Platteville’s Symphonic Wind Ensemble and the High School Festival Honors Band. The guest soloist with the Symphonic Wind Ensemble is Dr. Jacqueline Wilson, bassoonist and assistant professor of music at UW–Platteville.
The festival will be hosted by Dr. Barry Ellis, director of bands at UW–Platteville, and Matthew Gregg, associate director of bands at UW–Platteville.
The guest conductor/clinician will be Dr. David R. Holsinger, a nationally known conductor and composer. During the festival, Ellis, Gregg, Wilson and Holsinger will offer concerts, master classes, a reading session and professional clinics.
Holsinger has twice been the recipient of the prestigious Ostwald Composition Prize of the American Bandmasters Association.
“UW–Platteville’s annual Tri-State Honors Band Festival provides rewarding music experiences for the attending high school band students,” said Ellis. “They rehearse for two days and perform a finale concert under a nationally recognized conductor/clinician. Additionally, the students get to work closely with our music faculty in a sectional rehearsal and master class.”
All rehearsals are open, which allows university music students to observe the guest conductor in rehearsal. Members of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble have the opportunity to rehearse and perform a composition composed by Holsinger under his baton. Students and directors will also benefit from a clinic on bassoon by Wilson, a new music reading band session and a directors’ clinic by Holsinger.
For more information about the festival and schedule, go to www3.uwplatt.edu/music/tri-state-honors-band-festival.
