(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - The three-day long Southeast Alaska Music Festival was recently held at Ketchikan High School. This popular fete, which took place mid-April, rotates between Juneau, Sitka, and Ketchikan . “Music festival is special because it’s not a competition and everyone comes for the same reason’’, says Tommy Varela. He is one of the many young musicians from Ketchikan High School. Varela, who participates in the Concert Choir and Jazz Choir, says his favorite part of this year’s festival was preforming with the Jazz Choir. “We worked really hard and it paid off’’’.

Some of the participants of the Region-5 Southeast Alaska Music Festival
Photograph by Carol Warmuth

The Region-5 Southeast Alaska Music Festival had approximately 600 students participating from 11 schools around the region. This festival is unique compared to other music festivals around the country. In the morning on Thursday and Friday solos and small ensembles were preformed. Students could go to any performance of interest. In the afternoon, adjudicators and volunteers set up clinics for students to attend. Each clinic was contoured to a certain skill such as; sight reading, succeeding, oboe technics, guitar, music history, and intonation. At night, southeast Alaska school music groups performed concerts. The adjudicators evaluated the performances to determine if the performances were either a superior or comments.

Bands, choirs, instrumental and vocal ensembles, and soloists performed a variety of music. The music varied from classical orchestra to jazz to marching band to chamber music to cross-cultural folk songs to tone poems. A couple particularly notable performances included the Son de Cambaguey and the Witch and the Saint. The Son de Cambaguey composed by Stephen Hatfield was sung by the Kayhi Choir. This Cuban- Caribbean piece had an exciting Afro-Cuban beat was a piece that brought the crowd to its feet. The symphonic band piece, The Witch and the Saint was a dramatic finale song played by the Juneau Wind Ensemble. This symphonic poem was a movement that inspired the audience to imagine the story of the two sisters depicted as the sorcerer and the saint. The medieval sounding piece told a dramatic story through a melody that is repeated in varied tempos and intensities. Various sections were featured in the symphonic band piece. The Juneau Wind Ensemble preformed this difficult piece with ease.

This year four adjudicators came from all over the country to work with the young musicians. Richard Elliott, Maestro Vince Gomez, Mikkel Iverson, and Rebecca Rottsolk. Richard Elliott is now an Associate Director of the George Fox University, and an active adjudicator in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, British Columbia and Alaska. Maestro Vince Gomez is a frequent guest adjudicator for vocal and instrumental groups all over the world. He also preforms as a bassist/vocalist with his jazz tri at the Stinson Beach Grill. Rebecca Rottsolk is a guest conductor, clinician, and a conductor of two adult community choirs on the Olympic Peninsula and co-founder/director for the Mirinesse Women’s Choir.

The annual music festival is set up for the individual musician, even though every person comes for the same reason and every student takes something different from the festival. Individuality is encouraged and everyone is included. Participating students separate from their usual friends and meet people with similar interests and dreams. The students have opportunities to learn how to potentially achieve their dreams. It is an experience unlike any other.

Over one-hundred students participated from Ketchikan along with approximatley 500 students from other schools around the region including Petersburg, Metlakatla, Craig, Sitka, Juneau, Klwock, Haines and Wrangell.

Anna Warmuth is a Ketchikan youth with an interest in freelance writing.

Anna Warmuth ©2014

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