All State Music Festival Brings State’s Best Young Musicians to UMaine
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — The University of Maine is hosting an all-star cast for the 51st All-State Music Festival this weekend, as more than 400 of Maine’s best high school musicians have arrived on campus for three days of music, camaraderie and performance.
The three-day event began Thursday, continued today and winds up Saturday with two major public concerts at the Maine Center for the Arts, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Organizers from the UMaine School of Performing Arts also have attracted a slate of nationally respected music conductors to work with students. Festival participants were accepted into the competitive all-state festival program after auditions at their home schools last fall, according to Chris White, director of sports bands and lecturer in music at UMaine.
Students have been practicing in the 83-member all-state orchestra, 106-member band and 242-member all-state chorus, in preparation for the grand finale concerts Saturday. The event also corresponds with the Maine Music Educators Conference being held on campus.
“We have the best musicians in the state in band, orchestra and chorus, and we have guest conductors here from all over the nation,” White says.
Guest conductors include Stephen Peterson, director of bands at Ithaca College in New York, who conducts the wind ensemble and teaches courses in conducting and wind literature. He will conduct concert performance by the all-state band.
Paul Phillips, who will conduct the orchestra concerts, is music director of the Brown University Orchestra and the Pioneer Valley Symphony in Massachusetts.
Jing Ling-Tam, who will conduct the chorus, is professor of music and director of choral studies at the University of Texas Arlington.
All three have extensive experience in teaching, performing or conducting throughout the country and internationally.
The All-State Music Festival is an annual collaborative program sponsored by the University of Maine, UMaine School of Performing Arts and the Maine Music Educators Association. Students stay in university dormitories during the three-day festival.
Their schedules on Saturday will involve dress rehearsals for concerts at two and seven o’clock.
Assisting in the planning and coordination of the festival were White, Beth Wiemann, Curvin Farnham and Anatole Wieck of the School of Performing Arts, and Bruce Stinson, director for Conference Services Division at UMaine.
Admission for the concerts on Saturday is $6.
Additional information is available by calling the MCA box office at (207) 581-1755