February 9-10, 2024
The annual University of Wisconsin-Platteville Tri-State Honors Band Festival provides rewarding music experiences for high school band students and directors. The two-day event includes clinics, master classes, rehearsals, and concerts led by a guest conductor/clinician and UW-Platteville music faculty.
Guest Clinician
Carolyn Barber
Carolyn A. Barber is the Ron and Carol Cope Professor of Music and Director of Bands at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Glenn Korff School of Music. She earned a B.M. in horn performance at Northwestern University, an M.M. in horn performance from Yale University, and returned to Northwestern to earn her D.M. in conducting as a student of John P. Paynter and Victor Yampolsky.
Dr. Barber began her career as a lecturer and assistant to the dean of the Northwestern University School of Music. Her duties included teaching advanced conducting and directing the university’s 118-piece Concert Band. Prior to her appointment at UNL, Dr. Barber also served as the director of bands at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Apart from her conducting and teaching at UW-L, Dr. Barber also served for five years as the principal horn of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra.
As director of bands at UNL, her teaching assignment is now a hybrid of traditional academic classes and performance-based courses. This combination provides a rich atmosphere for the cross-pollination of ideas, techniques, and creative problem-solving. Dr. Barber’s chief area of research is conducting practice and pedagogy, with emphasis on group dynamics (flocking and influence), and the development of ensembleship through improvisation, artistic thinking, and a broad, multidisciplinary array of rehearsal techniques. She has demonstrated and elaborated upon her work at venues including the Midwest Clinic, conferences of the College Band Directors National Association, American String Teachers Association, and the National Association for Music Education, state music educators conventions, district training workshops, and masterclass/rehearsal clinics nationwide.
Dr. Barber has received numerous awards for musical and academic achievement, including the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts Distinguished Teaching Award, a Hixson-Lied Professorship, multiple National Band Association Citations of Excellence, and a United States Navy Good Conduct Medal – an unusual distinction for someone who has never had the honor to serve in the military. Most recently she was named the 2019 Martha Daniel Newell Scholar at Georgia College where she spent a semester developing a course and engaging in research focusing on the creative process. Her writing has been published in the Journal of Band Research, and she is a regular contributor to the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band reference series. In addition to her scholarly activities, Dr. Barber maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor throughout the United States and Canada. She is a member of Phi Beta Mu Honorary Bandmasters Fraternity, state chair, and a member of the College Band Directors.
Registration
-
Director Registration
Participating directors are requested to complete the director registration form. There is no registration fee for directors and we will buy your lunch and dinner on Friday. Please let us know in advance if you plan to attend. Director's activities include observation of rehearsals by our clinicians, the low brass and director's clinic, concert attendance, and a luncheon on Saturday sponsored by West Music. If you need housing on Friday evening, the Holiday Inn Express in Platteville, and Country Inn and Suites are available. Director's spouses, parents, administrators, and others are cordially invited to attend all clinic events.
-
Student Nomination
Eligibility
Students enrolled in grades 9-12 must be nominated by their high school director. As the festival is designed for the more proficient and experienced instrumentalists, it is assumed the director will nominate his/her most capable players.
Enrollment Procedure
To recommend talented students interested in participating in the Tri-State Honors Band Festival, directors should use the student nomination form and provide concise comments regarding the students’ musical accomplishments.
Deadline
Completed nomination forms due Jan. 5, 2024. Selected students from your school and finalized festival information will be forwarded to you by Jan 12, 2024.
-
Student Registration
Fees
To confirm a student’s nomination, they will be asked to register online. Specifics will follow in later correspondence. Please do not complete the student registration or pay the fee until after nominees are notified of their selection. The festival registration fees for students are as follows.
Residential fee: $175
This includes all meals (lunch and dinner on Friday and breakfast and lunch on Saturday), housing, t-shirt, and complete supervision of your students.Commuter fee: $125
This includes lunch and dinner on Friday and lunch on Saturday for students who commute to the festival.Arrival and Departure
Registration and chair placement auditions will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning. The final concert is Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m.
Festival Placement Auditions
After registration check-in, students will perform a brief audition on their festival music for chair placement within their assigned section.
Detailed Festival Information
Accepted students will receive a complete description of the festival procedures (registration form, music, festival schedule, etc.) by Jan 12, 2024. These materials will be emailed to the director for distribution to the invited students.
If you are interested in UW-Platteville for university study please let us know. If you would like to audition for the UW-Platteville Department of Music please bring two contrasting selections to play. We’ll set up an audition time for you on Friday. Please contact Daniel Rowland at rowlandd@uwplatt.edu. Learn more about the audition process for music scholarships.