Region Music Festival Day 4

Saturday, April 12th. The last day of the festival. The kids were all in practice again all day with their groups, either honor band, mass band, or choir. The practiced hard all day. It was broken up with breakout sessions for each type of instrument. Here are the choir girls practicing more. I listened in quite a bit to all of the groups and was impressed by the obvious progress that had been made in only a day. The directors for each group did a fantastic job of bringing kids from each individual school together to form a complete sound. The choir gave me chills with their voices on several occasions.
In the afternoon, students that made it to state for their solos and ensembles participated in the command performance. This performance features the best of the best in the festival and the participants perform in front of the rest of the festival kids. 4 of our students performed in this command performance.

While the kids were working with their groups to perfect their pieces for the evening public performance, I had plenty of time to roam around. I kept seeing this poster in various places around the school and town. Remember, you can click on the picture to make it bigger.
This was a neat piece of art hanging in an otherwise empty space in the hallway where our room was. I thought it was a neat little project. It's just one more example of how fish are the livelihood of the people.
After dinner, the kids had some down time before they had to get ready for dress rehearsal, but not much. I was again amazed by the kids and how seriously they took their musical talents. They hurried to get showered and dressed up to look their best for the grand finale of the festival. While they were busy prepping, I snapped a few shots of the scene. Here are some of the better ones...


Before the final performance, I was able to round everyone up for a group shot. Bethel had the most students for the festival and they were a well behaved, well rehearsed, musically gifted bunch who got positive comments from just about everyone.
And finally, the major production...mass band performed first. It was amazing to here how much they improved in only two days of hard work.
Choir was next. They sounded sublime! I had goose bumps throughout just about the entire performance. They sang four songs that most of them had never even hear two days before, but sounded as though they'd been practicing for months.
Honor band performed next. They really sounded superb. They were the biggest group and the most talented because of the fact that they had to audition to get a seat.

The combined mass band and honor band performed a song together and then the Alaska Brass showed everyone up with their musical talents. I will post some video of the performances as soon as I get over to school.