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This past Thursday was the annual South Carolina Independent School Association (SCISA) Music Festival, a major event for my music students each year.  The Music Festival is an opportunity for students to perform solo and ensemble pieces for judges.  The judges are typically doctoral students at the University of South Carolina School of Music, and they often give excellent, detailed feedback to students.

Students can earn one of three scores:  a Gold/Superior/I; a Silver/Excellent/II; or a Bronze/Good/III.  Even students who earn a Gold/Superior often get invaluable comments (in other words, not just things like, “That was amazing!” without further elaboration, although that does happen occasionally).  While I stress to my students that our aim is to get a Gold on our performances, the real value lies in 1.) challenging ourselves as musicians in the first place and 2.) taking constructive feedback to heart so that we can improve as musicians.

I also make sure they know that simply playing at the Festival is a testament to their courage as performers, as it is very difficult to expose one’s self to criticism, even when that criticism is designed to help us improve.  For me, signing up and working hard to prepare a solo is the most important victory; everything else is icing on the cake.

That said, I am very pleased to announce that both my Middle School and High School Instrumental Ensembles earned Golds for their performances.  My Middle School Music Ensemble competed in the Large Instrumental Ensemble category, and played an arrangement I put together of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music.  The High School Music Ensembled competed in the Small Instrumental Ensemble category, performing the 1930s jazz standard “All of Me.”

In total, we took home twenty (20) Gold medals, five (5) Silver medals, and three (3) Bronze medals.

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