Tri-State Band Symposium!!!

After much antici...pation and planning, followed by a little chaos, the USU Band department successfully made it through another Tri-State weekend!

The Tri-State Band Symposium brought in 90+ high school kids to participate in an honor band experience. The guest clinician this year was Mr. Randol Bass. You can learn about him and his music here.

There was a lot of work that went into this weekend, by faculty (obviously) the band office staff,and volunteers like TBS and KKY members - and other band members. Every bit of help was needed and certainly appreciated, as there's always a lot of running around with events like these.

Wind Orchestra performed a concert for the students on Friday night (they had arrived and auditioned that morning). It was the annual Collage concert, which features some chamber groups that exist in our program. This year, we featured the Horn Quartet, The Caine Brass Quintet, The Caine Woodwind Quintet, Trombone Ensemble, The Marching Tubadours, the Caine Percussion Ensemble, The USU Jazz Orchestra and the Clarinet Choir.

Wind Orchestra opened the concert with "Gloria" by Randol Bass, originally for orchestra and choir, but - in this case - written out for band. Mr. Bass conducted the piece. The second selection was "Oodles of Noodles" and featured a guest saxophone artist.

The concert closed by showing the audience the looney tunes cartoon "One Froggy Evening." Then the band played "One Froggy Evening", by Mr. Bass. He performed the part of the Frog, proving to be a more-than-talented singer. :)


The itinerary for the weekend didn't leave much time for sitting around, but it was - as it always is - a very rewarding experience (for us AND for the high school students).

THANK YOU to everyone who helped out over the weekend.

Now we can start looking forward to NEXT YEAR'S Tri-State Symposium!