SEC Festival Brings Musicians Together

February 9, 2022

On February 7, we hosted the Suburban East Conference Music Festival. Bank, Choir, and Orchestra students from eight different schools came to CDH to perform, work with professional clinicians, and then combine for an all-conference Grand Finale Concert.

The CDH Band performed three songs:

• Be Thou My Vision - traditional Irish tune, arr. Travis Cross
• Foundry - John Mackey
• At Morning's First Light - David Gillingham

After performing, they got to work with Dr. Erika Svanoe, the Conductor of the Augsburg University Concert Bank and a professor of music. She helped them work on listening to all the parts of the music instead of paying attention only to their own part.

"She brought an energy and passion for music that was really inspiring to listen to, for both our bands and the other ones there," said Becca Gutzmann '24, a member of the band. "Her critiques helped our band improve our sound and provided insights about the pieces in different ways that we hadn’t seen (or heard) before. 

The CDH Choir performed four songs:

• Cum Sancto Spiritu - Antonio Lotti
• Glow - Eric Whitacre, arr. Crocker
• All My Trials - traditional spiritual, arr. Johnson
• Sisi Ni Moja - Jacob Narverud

They then worked with Nicole Lamartine, the Sorenson Director of Choral Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She helped them develop fuller vowel sounds, and worked with the baritones particularly on using posture to strengthen their voice.

The student groups had the chance to listen to the other schools' performances and benefit from the clinicians' work with them as well. 

"I loved that we were able to listen to other bands and ensembles during SEC! It’s a really special opportunity to listen to other bands who have different sounds and styles of music," Gutzmann said. "It was fun to hear the bands play their pieces, and to be able to spend the time listening to their pieces for the elements of music that we talk about in class was very valuable." 

The Orchestra clinician was Nobuyoshi Yasuda, a conductor and performing musician throughout the U.S. and Japan.