Jackson band to perform in front of hundreds of music teachers

The Jackson Junior High Honor Band will perform for those gathered at the 77th annual Missouri Music Educators Association Conference this afternoon in Osage Beach, Missouri.

Eric Heider plays marimba with the Jackson Junior High Honor Band on Sunday in Jackson. (Fred Lynch)

Conductor Paul Fliege explained that the opportunity is a testament to the dedication and skill of the band.

"We're a junior-high band," he said. "Which means that everyone here is in seventh or eighth grade, playing for either one-and-a-half or two-and-a-half years."

He explained that the band has been working diligently on their concert, which includes four compositions, since August.

"We've pulled some of our best kids into one band, the honor band," he said. "These are the kids who, if we had a day off or something, they were here. Martin Luther King Jr. Day? They were the ones who came in and practiced for four hours."

Others have evidently noticed all that practice time, as the performance in Osage Beach is an invitation-only gig.

Eighth-grader and clarinet player Valerie Young said she's excited for the upcoming performance and proud of the band's repertoire.

"I think it's pretty challenging, but we've been practicing a lot," she said. "It's been difficult meeting every Thursday at certain times, but these are pieces that high schoolers don't perform, so it's exciting."

Her favorite is the last piece, titled "Hopak!" which also happens to be the most difficult. Fleige said the band really is performing at a precocious level.

"Compositions are graded on a scale from 0.5 to 6, with 6 being the hardest music that the most talented professional musicians would perform," he explained. "Most junior high bands will play a 2 or a 2.5, but we're playing a 2.5, a 3, another 3 and a 4."

Peyton Strand plays trumpet with the Jackson Junior High Honor Band on Sunday in Jackson. (Fred Lynch)

The first is called "Invercargill," dedicated to the New Zealand town of the same name by Alex Lithgow. The second piece is the stirring and sultry, "Arabian Dances," by Brian Balmages. Hugh M. Stuart's "Three Ayers from Gloucester" conjures a sense of English folk and fantasy, while the final and most challenging piece, "Hopak!" -- meaning "to jump" -- is based on the traditional dances of Ukraine.

The Missouri Music Educators Association selected the band from a pool of more than 160 junior-high bands. The Jackson Junior High Honor Band will perform for about 800 Missouri music teachers.

"The point of the conference is a contest. The featured bands are supposed to show what a junior-high band should sound like," Fliege said. "The goal has been to make them sound even better than a junior-high band would sound."

He thanked the Jackson school system for facilitating the impressive music program, but said the dedication of the students -- and the parents that drive them, of course -- is the real key to success.

"This is what all the time has been headed toward," he said. "It's a total team effort."

tgraef@semissourian.com

388-3627