MUSIC FESTIVAL : Thousands of kids will have the chance to make some noteworthy achievements.

More than 3,000 young musicians from throughout Southern California are expected to converge on the South Bay for this year’s Southwestern Youth Music Festival, which begins Saturday and runs through Aug. 6 at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

The festival is in its 31st year, and while it mainly serves as a competition, the week of concerts and contests also gives music teachers in the area a summertime goal to set before their students.

“This is one of the few things in the summertime that the kids have a chance to work for because most of the other competitions are in the spring,” said Charlotte Deveny, who runs the South Bay Conservatory in Rancho Palos Verdes with her husband, Edwin.

The Devenys have 34 students in the competition: 32 painists and two cellists.

“This is supposed to be a wonderful experience, not a traumatic thing for the students, so we look for ones who are confident and who are prepared,” Deveny said.

The odds of doing well, however, are good. The contest is divided into: open competition, where students of all ages may compete against one another, and qualified competition where students of the same age and level of experience are matched. In all, there are 320 separate contests for the musicians during the week.

“What’s unique about this festival is that, for example, a 10-year-old who has studied for one year will be competing with a 10-year-old with the same level of experience, not with a 10-year-old who has studied for two years,” said Carl Matthes, executive director of the festival. “What we’re trying to do is encourage the study of music.”

There will be eight concerts each day--four at noon and four at 4 p.m.--to allow first-place winners in each category to perform and collect trophies and cash awards. The public is invited, free of charge.

Winners of the most prestigious competitions--The Young Pianist competition, the Young Violinist competition and the junior and senior champions in cello and flute--each will receive a cash award and an opportunity to perform with the Festival Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Frances Steiner, a professor of music at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

“That particular group of students is of a level that you would be seeing on international competition stages in a few years,” Matthes said. “The requirements and the levels of expectation are so high that it’s a competition you don’t enter unless you feel especially gifted and ready.”

Also of interest are the special competitions in Chopin and baroque and American music.

The Festival Symphony Orchestra concert will be at the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena as part of an all-day showcase on Wednesday. For reservations, call (213) 257-1444.