October is a busy month in the Northwest district. First I want to wish our district Choir performers and directors good luck this weekend at the Concert. Break a leg! Tomorrow is also the deadline for Band entries in the District Band. Auditions will be held Saturday November 4th at St. Joe Central High School. If you have a brief story about how you impacted the life of a student, would you send it to me so I can share it in the Missouri School Magazine. I thought it would be nice to share impactful stories that created “ripples” through our state. We have two messages from affiliates below. Please check them out.
Message From John Bell at NWMSU:
Greetings from Northwest!
The nomination page for the 2024 Northwest Four-State Honor Bands is now active at this link. The date is Saturday, January 13, 2024. All nominations must be received no later than Friday, November 10th, 2023.
Mr. Larry MacTaggart, American composer and arranger, is the conductor/clinician for the Honor Wind Ensemble. Larry has served as a percussionist and chief musical arranger for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command Band, staff music arranger and Chief Music Arranger and Production Manager for the United States Air Force Band in Washington D.C. In 2007 he was assigned to serve as the career field functional manager for 700 Air Force band members. Based out of the Pentagon, he coordinated all matters pertaining to personnel assignments, deployments, and training of twelve Air Force bands. He is the former music director and conductor of the Nebraska Wind Symphony and is active throughout the country as a guest clinician, adjudicator, and conductor.
Dr. William Sutton is the conductor/clinician for the Honor Symphonic Band. Will is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Northwest where he conducts the Northwest Concert Band and teaches trombone, euphonium, tuba, and music theory. He performs regionally with the Kansas City Symphony and St. Joseph Symphony, and previously performed with the Lansing (MI) Symphony, and Orchestra of Northern New York, Holland Symphony Orchestra, Capital City Brass Band, Mountain Town Brass Band, and Mid-Michigan Brass Band. Dr. Sutton has been invited to perform at the Regional and International Tuba and Euphonium Conferences and as a soloist with many college and university ensembles. As a Willson Performing Artist he plays the 2900 TA euphonium and the 3400 FA-5 E-flat tuba. Will’s solo playing can be heard under the Kendor Music, Inc. label.
Please check with each of your nominees to confirm availability on the festival date so that no conflicts with other commitments interfere with their participation. (The Northwest Honor Choir is NOT on the same day!)
The success of the Northwest Four-State Honor Band Festival relies on your continued support of this event by encouraging outstanding students in your program to participate. Once again, last year we had a record number of nominations and were able to seat TWO bands…we hope to continue that this year and in the future so more students can participate! Thanks in advance for your help with this endeavor, and we look forward to receiving your nominations!
John Bell
Artist In Residence
Director of Wind Symphony
Music Education
Applied Horn
Music Area Recruiting
Band Coordinator, Northwest Four-State Honor Band Festival
Co-Director, Northwest Summer Music Camp
Message from Opera in the Ozarks about All-State Band:
Hello Directors!
Each year, our principal players record audition etudes for the Senior
High All-State music festivals in five states: Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Missouri, Kansas, and Texas. These are professional musicians from
around the country who hold positions on college faculties and in
professional orchestras, including the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Omaha Symphony, South Dakota Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, Orchestra Miami, and the Symphony Orchestra of Northwest Arkansas, among others. These videos are fantastic supplemental materials for your students. The coaching and musician’s biographies are available on our website. You can also link our YouTube playlist to your digital classrooms so your students can access these videos during individual practice.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHkbOOz-yOxewUEpIxY8ESoBkWs-XIJff&feature=shared
Sincerely,
Opera in the Ozarks
Orchestra & Staff
Hello NW District 1
I hope your year has started off well. The MMEA board has been working hard behind the scenes to get things planned for the district events. Please make sure you take a look at the VP letters on each one of the pages for more information. There is a ton of information in this email. Please visit the website for more information: www.nwmmea.net. As always, please forward this information to any new teachers in your district and have them register on the website to begin receiving emails.
2023 All-district band audition registration link is accessible to logged-in users in the Posts & Info section.
Please encourage new teachers to attend the mentoring conference: Mentoring Conference
The 2024 MMEA conference will be Jan 22-27. Elementary focus will be Mon-Wed and Secondary focus will be Thurs-Sat. Details here:
I wish you all the best in the 2023-2024 school year. Good luck preparing your students for district and state auditions in the upcoming semester. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. All VP letters and information should be posted to the website soon if it is not already there.
Jeff Clymore
Director of bands
Richmond School District
jclymore@richmondspartans.org
Message from Roy Maxwell – Mentoring Chair
With the start of another year, we want to make sure we connect with those that are new to the profession. MMEA wants to make sure these new teachers have the resources and connections to be successful. If you know any 1st year teachers in the district, please send me their contact information (almmlm91@gmail.com.)
If you are already in contact with a new teacher, please share the following link https://mmea.net/mmea-mentoring-monthly-online-meetings/ This is the link for the monthly zoom meetings so they can attend to get the answers and support that they need during the year. These programs have been extremely successful at helping new music educators.
Thank you for your help.