By Hailey Hagemaster
News Writer
Photo by Hailey Hagemaster

For the first time, the music department’s Chamber Choir, Jazz Band, and Wind Ensemble are all performing at the ILMEA All-State performance. On Thursday, they will take part in this selective music conference held in Peoria.

The Chamber Choir and Wind Ensemble are both performing as a group, while the Jazz Band was selected for a clinic. This clinic is being taught by Josh Kaminsky, one of the band directors, and involves the MV Jazz Band and the Hill Middle School Jazz Band.

The Illinois Music Educators Association hosts this performance, and it showcases the top music programs in the state. For the music teachers, they are observing clinics all day and watching other school performances.

“It’s like going back to school,” band director and fine arts chair Don Devany said.

Getting into this All-State performance was a three year application process and very selective. Students started auditioning in October for the district level, and from there they were selected for the All-State performance.

“You can consider it as an All-State athlete, except it’s All-State musicians,” Devany said.

Students will be accompanied by 10,000 other people at the conference, including music teachers, professionals, and clinicians. On top of the clinics, schools in Illinois can apply to perform as an ensemble like the Chamber Choir and Wind Ensemble did.

“They take a few [ensembles] each year and if selected you get to perform in front of all these people, which is a really big honor,” Devany said.

The Chamber singers are performing a total of six songs and the Wind Ensemble is playing a total of four. For practice, they performed in the evening this past Tuesday evening in the auditorium for anyone to see.

“I’m excited to spend the day with this group of people that I love so much. Chamber is such a close knit group, and we have been working extremely hard on our set, so it will be great to see our work paying off,” sophomore Chamber singer Tory Christian said.