“This was an incredible opportunity. Even the best college band conductors in the world only get a few shots over the course of their career to do something like this. It’s like the college football playoffs or college basketball’s Final Four. It’s that tier of performance. This is the greatest performance opportunity for collegiate band at the highest level in the United States. It’s so incredibly prestigious.”
Dr. Jonathan Caldwell, UNCG Director of Bands, is referring to the School of Music Wind Ensemble’s recent, invited performance at the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, which was preceded by a six-city tour as students and faculty traveled west by bus.
Caldwell says his students’ work as an ensemble and as individuals earned them the invitation:
“First and foremost, they play extremely well. They can do things on their instruments that I couldn’t dream of being able to do when I was a student. When I listen to them play, I just marvel at their ability levels. They bring such energy, and you can see the connection with each other when they land that piece that they’ve been working so hard on.”
The composition of the 62-member Wind Ensemble is roughly 60% undergraduate and 40% graduate students:
“We have students in the ensemble who are first year students. These are people who were in high school just last year. We also have second year doctoral students. And they’re all playing in the same ensemble together—kids who are nineteen and twenty years old alongside students who are in their mid-thirties and extremely experienced. What these students have in common and what makes them stand out,” says Caldwell, “is the way they approach rehearsal and performance with a sense of joy and humility and purpose. It never feels compulsory. It’s not ‘I have to do this’; it’s ‘I get to do this.’”
UNCG was one of seven schools selected by blind review to play at the conference on March 28th. Other schools that played at the conference were Texas Christian University (the host institution), the University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University, Baylor University, the University of North Texas, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and St. Olaf College.
“Notice a trend here?” asks Caldwell. “Five of the performing schools are in Texas, a state that is legendary for collegiate bands. It is hard to overstate how big this really is. Our students will remember this for the rest of their lives.”
Michael Mangrum, who is in his first year of a Master’s degree in Trombone, says playing at the CBDNA conference will be a highlight of his college career:
“I feel grateful and honored to have had the opportunity to perform at such an important event. Prior to this, I never imagined I would have the chance to go on a tour this extensive with any ensemble, let alone perform at the biggest conference in the country for college band.”
Wyatt Roper is pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Clarinet. He agrees that this has been an exciting opportunity:
“I chose to study music at UNCG because of the faculty and community within the School of Music. At the other schools I auditioned at, it wasn’t the same. This has been an experience that feels larger than I could ever have imagined, and I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity as an undergraduate!”
Leading up to the conference was a weeklong tour, in which the ensemble played at high schools and colleges in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas:
“For almost all performances that college students do, they play that program once. If you go to hear a professional orchestra, they may do a weekend of performances. But on tour for seven days, we were four to five hours on the bus, then getting off to play a concert at each stop. This has incredible benefits for the students, not just musically, but also experiencing the grind of doing that. How you bring it every single day is something that is great for professional training.”
The program that Caldwell put together has ties to UNCG’s history as the North Carolina College for Women:
“Our program featured compositions by Ida Gotkovsky—Symphonie pour orchestre d’harmonie—and School of Music alumna Dai Wei— Saṃsāric Dance. It also featured the poetry of Kim Addonizio—Christopher Cerrone’s Darkening, Then Brightening—, and the voice of a female faculty member with Lindsay Kesselman, soprano. It is an acknowledgement of UNCG’s legacy of women’s education and a celebration of women’s voices more broadly.”
Amrutha Koteeswaran is a second-year doctoral student in Flute. She says the tour was special for several reasons:
“It’s an understatement to say that playing at CBDNA was a huge deal and being able to be a part of the ensemble has been fantastic. I’ve enjoyed the process of learning the music more and more. Also, I’m from McKinney, Texas, so I loved getting to perform so close to home! This is my final degree and probably the final collegiate ensemble I’ll be playing in, so it was even more special that I was able to share this moment with an ensemble I care very much about and with my family.”
This was the School of Music’s third invitation to perform at the conference, the first being in 2009 in Austin, Texas under the direction of Emeritus Professor of Music John Locke, and the second as the hosting institution in 2013. Locke also took his band on tour, and Caldwell says he repeated that path with a lot of help, including support from the Office of the Provost which provided $50,000 in funding for the tour buses. Caldwell says he received a lot of assistance in planning:
“Putting a tour together can be a logistical nightmare. None of this would have happened without Brad MacMillan (Director of Outreach Programs and Marketing) and Lindsey Dean (Ensembles Manager), who contributed to the tour by helping to be in touch with alumni band directors along our route to let them know about the concerts so they could bring their students. Zero-point-zero percent of it could’ve been done without them.
“Lindsay Kesselman (Assistant Professor of Voice and Choral Music) performed with us on the tour and was amazing. You know when people ask what it’s like to work at UNCG, my answer is the same every single time. I tell them what I love about my job is that every day I come into work and my students, and my colleagues challenge me to be better than the way I was yesterday. Lindsay Kesselman and Brad McMillan are two of those people who make me better every time I work with them.”
Caldwell and McMillan worked together to make the tour a learning opportunity for students and a way to reach alumni and prospective students:
“This is the best kind of recruiting we can do. And it’s a good way to stay connected with alumni,” explains Caldwell.
“We invited alumni band directors to bring their students so these high schoolers could see what’s going on at UNCG, that we’ve got a good thing going here and they can be a part of it. We also wanted our alumni to see that we’re still doing things at a very high level.
“Often when people leave a university they look back and say, ‘Well, those were the good ol’ days.’ But you know what? The good ol’ days at UNCG’s School of Music are still happening right now and will continue to be. Our alumni are our best recruiting source because they know their student is going to get a great experience if they go to UNCG.”
Story by Terri W Relos
Graphic and Photo credit: Brad McMillan
Concert Program by Brad McMillan
