Region's best student musicians perform in Meadville today

Feb. 24—More than 150 of the best high school musicians in the state's northwest region will take the stage today at Meadville Area Senior High, and for many, it will be the biggest and best band they have ever performed with.

The students will be performing a challenging program of seven selections over about 75 minutes, but they will also be among the most avid listeners in the MASH auditorium.

"It's so cool, especially from being such a small school where there's not too many musicians," said Alison Merritt, a senior cornet player from Cochranton Junior-Senior High. "Some of these instruments you've never even really seen before because we don't have enough people at Cochranton for that. You come here and you hear all these instruments that you don't normally hear at your home school, so it's pretty cool to experience that."

Merritt was among a group of six seniors from Cochranton and Meadville who qualified for the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association Region II Band Festival that started Thursday at MASH and concludes with today's performance. As musicians, band directors and others gathered for rehearsal in the auditorium, the Crawford Central School District seniors offered their insider perspective on the big show.

For many of the students, this is the time of year when their musical pursuits seem to blur into juggling practice. MASH senior Avi Maisner, for instance, will play the euphonium in today's concert (euphonium, part of the brass family of instruments, typically has four valves and plays tenor to the tuba's bass). But in the jazz band and orchestra concerts that are also on the schedule this time of year, Maisner played trombone and tuba, respectively.

"Once this season hits, it's such an exercise of all my musical talent," Maisner said as the seniors and several Crawford County band directors gathered in the hallway outside the auditorium. "It's knowing what to prioritize without stressing yourself out — and not over-playing because if you over-practice, it just gets so stressful."

Balancing potential stress is the payoff: taking part in what is essentially an all-star performance, tackling more challenging music and playing for a larger audience.

MASH cornet player Kyle Peterson, for instance, found himself surrounded by talent as rehearsals began.

"The section is incredibly good," Peterson said. "It's pretty exciting to play with such good trumpets because you don't really get to experience that in normal, everyday playing."

With better talent comes greater musical responsibilities as well. The more complex music demands extra attention, particularly since members of the same sections are not necessarily playing together. For the 16 musicians playing cornets and trumpets, that means subsets of the players handling different parts and different melodies in a piece like Roger Cichy's "Divertimento" midway through today's program.

"It sounds kind of chaotic but it sounds good at the same time," Peterson said. "It's fun to play."

That idea — that the more difficult material, higher talent level and higher expectations made for work that was both challenging and enjoyable — was a theme upon which several of the seniors played variations.

MASH flute player Luca White, for instance, agreed with Peterson.

"I think it's fun," he said of the three-day festival. "I definitely enjoy getting to meet new people. You find people who have the same enjoyment of music as you do."

For Chelsea Teasdale, a bass clarinet player from MASH, the exposure to other musicians and conductors adds to the experience, but much of the fun awaits.

"I look forward to seeing how everything meshes together as a whole," Teasdale said, "and hearing all the sections together."

Cochranton clarinetist Kristen McGarvey has been practicing since fourth grade and now finds herself part of a concert band with three clarinet sections plus a bass clarinet section — 39 clarinets overall or what some might say is more clarinets than you can shake a licorice stick at.

Part of the instrument's draw lies in its complexity, while the other part, McGarvey joked, lies in the fact that it's not a brass instrument. But in trying to explain the hold it has on so many musicians, McGarvey struggled to find the right words. Audience members today might hear the explanation when the band plays Julie Giroux's "Riften Wed."

"It's one of the slower songs, but it's so fun to play," McGarvey said. "I love it."

No sight reading skills were required to observe that McGarvey's sentiment and the passion evident from each of the young musicians is what the band directors assembled nearby love to hear. The concert band consists of the "best of the best" from about 50 high schools, they noted, and features only students in grades 10 through 12, the vast majority of them juniors and seniors.

"My band rehearses with grades seven through 12," said Jamie Gardner of Maplewood Junior-Senior High, "so this gives my kids a chance to rehearse with mature high school kids."

Small rural schools have a hard time finding opportunities for their musicians to play in full ensembles, both Glenn Cameron of Conneaut Area Senior High and Carl Miller of Cochranton agreed. For some, performing at the district or regional levels will be the only such experience.

When students have that opportunity at events like the Region II Band Festival, the effect can reverberate beyond the auditorium where the concert takes place, according to Kevin Vinson of Titusville High School.

"It motivates some of these kids to work at a higher level," Vinson said. "Hopefully they take back what they've learned and inspire that next class coming up. That's what I love — it's not just a three-day event. It's a learning experience that really is a learning process."

You can go

The PMEA Region II Band Festival concert takes place at 2 p.m. today in the Meadville Area Senior High auditorium. A concert band featuring 155 of the best high school musicians from a 13-county area in the northwestern part of the state will perform seven selections in a show lasting about 75 minutes. Admission is $6 for adults and $5 for students.

Crawford County's All-State qualifiers

Five high school musicians from Crawford County qualified this week to perform in either the All-State Concert Band or All-State Wind Ensemble during the PMEA All-State Festival in Erie from April 17 to April 20: Katherine Gillette, senior, French horn, Conneaut Area Senior High; Jocelynn Lane, senior, tenor saxophone, Maplewood Junior-Senior High; Alison Merritt, senior, trumpet, Cochranton Junior-Senior High; Katherine Miller, senior, alto saxophone, CASH; and Elizabeth Watkins, junior, flute, Titusville High.

Mike Crowley can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at mcrowley@meadvilletribune.com .