This past Saturday Moreno Valley Unified School District held their Concert Band Festival at Vista Del Lago High School. This is a festival when all of the bands from the Moreno Valley school district came together and performed for judges and each other. Each band was set up to perform at least 2-3 concert pieces. The bands ranged from beginning bands in middle school to specific bands like symphonic and wind ensembles in the high schools.
The performances started out with Vista Heights Middle School Beginning Band at 8 am that morning and continued with performances from each school every thirty minutes ending with Valley View High School Wind Ensemble 6:15 that evening.
The mission of the Concert Band Festival is to help the students in each band develop better listening skills and get critiqued on their performances. Each band performed in front of family and friends, as well as a panel of three judges. The judges were there to adjudicate their performances and to give their constructive feedback. Each judge is from the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association.
All of the bands in attendance were required to perform three pieces. During each piece the judges would make notes and speak into a digital voice recorder about the school’s performance. After the performance had finished the schools were taken into a separate area with one of the three judges. During this time the judge would hold a learning clinic and give the band their performance critique. The critique would consist of everything from the percussion beats being matched to the wind instruments being off key.
The point of each clinic was to allow the adjudicated judge to give as much feedback as possible so the band could learn from their performance and better their playing. After the school’s band would finish each clinic they were then required to join in the audience and listen to at least two fellow school bands perform. This task was required so that it would help the band members develop their listening skills and better attune themselves to the music that is being performed by others and themselves.
After their performances were completed the judges would submit their reviews and it was posted on the bulletin board. They graded the school’s performances on a 3 tier scale. The first one being a comments only ranking, which meant that the judges only issued constructive comments to the schools. The second ranking was an “excellent’ and the third being “superior” which meant that the school performed to their most optimum ability.
In total 19 bands from the various Moreno Valley schools performed. Most schools received a ranking of “excellent” from the judges. However, at least a handful of schools received a “superior” ranking. Some of those schools included, Palm Middle School Advanced Band and Vista Heights Middle School Advanced Band.