Missoula Community Concert Band to Perform with SSHS Band

SEELEY LAKE – The Missoula Community Concert Band will join Seeley-Swan High School for a joint concert Tuesday, April 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the SSHS Auditorium. SSHS Music Director Kristen Cottom said this is a unique opportunity for her students to get to play more challenging music with better musicians and with a full concert band. The community is invited to this free event.

The Missoula Community Concert Band is a non-profit organization devoted to promoting and performing concert band music in western Montana. One of the missions for the Concert Band is to support students in the area. Each spring they do an outreach concert to area schools.

"One of our hopes is to encourage students that music can be a lifelong hobby and something that can be meaningful to them even if they don't become a professional musician," said Meg Carnegie, Missoula Community Concert Band President and member since 1996.

The band is open to all adults of all skill levels who play wind, brass and percussion instruments. They present two concerts per year - in the fall and spring - which feature guest conductors and a wide range of concert band music. Their spring concert is April 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Missoula Children's Theatre, 425 E Broadway in Missoula.

"It's a really nice diverse group and we have a lot of fun," said Carnegie.

Carnegie said that every semester they hire a different conductor after the founding conductor retired after more than 15 years.

"It has been really interesting because everyone has their own style and their own type of music that they like and so it gives us some variety in what we do," said Carnegie.

This semester the conductor is Jesse Dochnahl, the band and music technology teacher at Big Sky High School.

Usually the band chooses a school in Missoula or in the Bitterroot Valley. One of the members of the band suggested SSHS since it is a part of Missoula County Public Schools and they have never done an outreach concert in Seeley Lake.

"He thought it would be really great for us to reach out and make sure Seeley feels included," said Carnegie. "We are excited to come up there and going to a place that we don't usually go."

The concert will consist of five songs from the Concert Band followed by three selections from the SSHS band. The concert will end with a combined piece, James Curnow's "Fanfare and Flourishes," under direction of Dochnahl.

Cottom said she is excited for the students to have the opportunity to play next to the concert band members. She also thinks playing with a full concert band will be a great experience since the SSHS band is so small.

The Missoula County Concert Band will also give a scholarship to the University of Montana Band Camp to one SSHS band student as part of the outreach event.

 

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