Wind Ensemble will perform at the Missouri Music Educators Association conference in January held at The Lake of the Ozarks. Being selected to play at this event is equivalent to winning state in the music world.
“[The MMEA board] selects the five or six bands out of the multitude of bands that submit,” said director of bands, Matt Bonsignore. “If you are selected you are only allowed to perform once every four years so after this year we will not be eligible to even submit until 2028.”
Submissions to MMEA are done electronically with three songs in a program. The audition tapes are then judged and cut down until the selections for the MMEA convention have been made.
“I’ve listened to literally hundreds of pieces to decide what would fit our ensemble the best and while selecting I made it very diverse,” Bonsignore said.
When choosing the music it needs to relate to the audience as well as the musicians playing it.
“The music is pretty challenging but it’s fun to play,” said senior Anna Bundy. “We do sectionals which are once a week at 6:45 in the morning til when school starts.”
Each musical instrument group has a morning when they go in early, once a week, and practice their music. While the whole week of mornings has been taken up by band sections, percussionists have taken a week away from the band to practice individual parts instead.
“The week we were away from the whole band was to enhance our technique and musical ability,” said senior Hailey Royer, percussionist.
While the hard work put into this performance is at a maximum level, so is the excitement as the directors and the 48 students in the band continue to work toward the MMEA concert on Jan. 26, 2024.