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Small school bands open big show

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Students waited on a large dark stage lit by spotlights, positioning their instruments, looking over music notes, trying to calm their nerves. The conductor gave the signal and the red curtain opened on the Mission Valley Band Festival at the Performing Arts Center  Tuesday, Nov. 10, in Ronan.

Before the audience arrived, the students needed to practice, and they practiced all day. They needed to get a feel for the foreign stage and the strange things it did to their music. It was also a bit weird for many of the students to play in a really big group.

“There are so many people playing music that we can feel the vibrations,” said Cree Lulack, 14, from Plains of the 100-plus students. 

Ronan Band Director Alicia Lipscomb invited students from many small schools just so they could experience the stage, its sound quality and playing in a large group. She grew up in Charlo.

“I was that kid,” she said of playing in a small band. As the band instructor for Ronan, she decided to share the school’s stage and give other students an opportunity she said she would have loved. This is the sixth year she has sent out invitations to small schools. 

“They get to hear the full blend of a concert band,” she said of the benefits of putting all the small schools together. 

Mission band teacher Kendal Anderson waited with her students while each of the eight schools took turns with a practice performance on the stage. The night’s performance would go much the same way: each school would perform individually then they would come together and play as a group. Anderson was happy that her students got the opportunity to use the stage.

“This is completely different for our kids,” she said. “We have a small high school band, and we usually perform in a giant gym without acoustics. It’s also great that we get to play as a group with different instruments like the French horn.”

Mission student Yvonne Batyy,14, plays the flute.

“It makes me feel grand,” she said of the facility.

Thompson Falls music teacher Adam Craw spoke to his 16 students before the curtain opened on the practice round. Students from the different schools acted as the audience. He asked the students to “acknowledge your nerves” before they began.

“We get one chance to perform and the nerves can start to build up,” he later said. “Sometimes it just helps to acknowledge them so you can get on with playing.”

Mathias Walker, 18, is an exchange student from Switzerland at Plains. He said he has been across the globe and hasn’t ever been able to perform on a stage like the one in Ronan.

“Not even in Switzerland did I get to do something like this,” he said.

Arlee student Chase Wiley said “it’s neat that we get to see how a big band sounds,” and he was impressed with the acoustics in the building, but he also explained that there are benefits to playing in a small school band: “We get a lot of individual instruction,” he said. 

No matter where students play, their brains are operating at a capacity compared to that of a neurosurgery with a complex multitasking effort.

“Kids learn how to interact on a whole new level with band,” Lipscomb said. “They use more of the brain in music than in any other activity. They have to read notes, produce notes and listen to notes all at the same time. Band is very important.”

And she plans to invite the schools back again next year. This year the schools included Ronan, Charlo, St. Ignatius, Arlee, Plains, Thompson Falls, Noxon and St. Regis.

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