The North-Central Montana Honor Band and Choir Festival takes place the Monday and Tuesday after Thanksgiving, this year on November 29-30.  Several schools that have nice auditoriums take turns hosting the festival.  This year Choteau HS is the host school. 

  
Students in the Class B or C schools of Music Districts 6 & 7 may audition to perform in this band / choir.  This area is more-or-less the Golden Triangle area of Montana.  The band is made up of about 50-60 students from these schools.  Only those who are good enough make it, and the instrumentation of the band has to be considered also, you wouldn't want a band with 40 trombones and 2 flutes!  The choir is usually a little bigger than the band.  Balance is one of the major factors determining the choir's size also.

Congratulations to our musicians who made it into the honor groups!!

The directors for this year's festival are, as usual, wonderful. The choir will be led by Amy Schendel who teaches choir at Billings Skyview HS. Amy is a dedicated music educator, serving her fourteenth year as the Director of Choirs at Billings Skyview High School and as co-conductor of Yellowstone Valley Voices. She travels around the state and beyond conducting honor choirs, adjudicating at festivals and teaching at summer camps. Amy holds bachelor’s degrees in Clarinet Performance and Music Education, as well as a Master’s in Music Education from the University of Montana. She is a certified member of the VoiceCare Network and is currently serving as the President-Elect of the Montana Music Educators Association. 

Dr. James Smart is the band director this year. Dr. Smart is the Director of Bands and Trumpet at the University of Montana where he conducts the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, teaches applied trumpet, undergraduate and graduate conducting, and music education courses.  Under his direction, the Symphonic Wind Ensemble was selected to perform at the joint 2010 Western/Northwestern Region College Band Directors National Association Conference in Reno, NV and the 2013 NAfME All-Northwest Conference in Portland, OR.  Dr. Smart is also the founder, producer, and co-conductor of the annual Fusion Concert where over 25 acts showcase the diversity of the UM School of Music in one seamless stream of music.

We are excited to have these awesome directors work with our students.

This festival is a great experience. The students get a chance to perform in a group with balanced instrumentation and voicing, have a different conductor to learn new things from,  work on more challenging music than most small groups can hope to do, and make music with others who take it seriously.  Some of these factors are hard to come by in a small school.  Meeting new friends is also a benefit of a festival like this. 

Use the menus at the left for our itinerary and permission slip.