Southern Fulton will take it's turn hosting the 2007 Franklin Fulton County Music Educators Association (FFCMEA) county chorus festival on March 2 & 3, 2007. Dan Meredith reports that the Senior High Director will be Barbara Benglian and the Junior High director will be Fran Nesta. Dan reminded directors that they should use the "small school" quotas for next year. Chambersburg gets a double quota of 32 and the other larger schools have a quota of 16 and the smaller schools each get 12 students. (Note that smaller schools can host festivals if accommodations can be made.)
Phil Debski reports that Forbes Road finally has an auditorium and will host their first festival this year, the FFCMEA Fall County Band. This festival benefits 60-70 kids, usually from the small school districts in our two-county area and will be held at Forbes Road on Friday, November 3rd. The festival is in it's third year and was created to provide and opportunity for students from smaller schools (typically those without a football program) to participate in a band of a larger size with a more complete instrumentation than they would experience in their home district. It has bee a traditional concert band festival. This year, the festival will take on a different format. Phil has worked with Bill Stowman to find some student "interns" from Messiah to work with the kids. They will work with the students in smaller concert and jazz ensembles in the morning, and then in the afternoon they will work with a full band ensemble. FFCMEA provides a budget of $750 (basically for a meal and guest director fees) to finance this festival. Questions concerning the festival should be directed to Phil Debski at Forbes Road.
Central Fulton School District (McConnellsburg High School) will be hosting the PMEA District 4 Sixth Grade Band Fest. The band will consist of approximately 150 members this year and will rehearse an perform in an auditorium setting. The guest director has been narrowed to two choices and information will be going out to district elementary and middle schools in a mailing in the near future. Please make sure that the schools that house sixth grade band students in your district are getting the information. Anyone not getting the information can contact Larry Stepler at lstepler@tim11.org .
Also of note this year is that the FFCMEA Junior High and Senior High County Band festival will be held at the Mercersburg Academy in (you guessed it) Mercersburg, PA. The festival will be held on January 12 & 13, 2007 at the Burgin Center for the Arts which is located on the campus of the Mercersburg Academy. The cost associated in the building of this brand new "edifice" is into the tens of millions of dollars. Host Director Richard Rotz reports that the guest conductor for the senior high will be Harlan Parker from Peabody Conservatory. Brad Genevro from Messiah College will conduct the junior high. If you want to experience one of the newest and finest performance centers in Pennsylvania with fine guest conductors, you may be interested in checking this one out.