Festival Putting Students in Concert With the Masters

A sort of musical March madness has come to Oxnard’s Channel Islands High School, with classical school orchestras from across Southern California replacing classic college basketball matchups.

And instead of the perpetual yammering of sports commentators, the more refined strains of Wagner and Bach define this musical marathon.

Both Friday and today, 37 bands are competing, not with each other, but against themselves in the annual Southern California School Band and Orchestra Assn. Music Festival. But the pressure is no less intense and a spot in Ventura County’s biggest band fest is almost as coveted as the Final Four.

“I had to turn away 10 schools,” organizer Gary Engels said. “I just couldn’t fit them in.”

The reward for band members is a 30-minute performance that is evaluated by a panel of three judges, who then provide the young musicians with a half-hour critique and a rating roughly equivalent to a traditional letter grade.

With months of rigorous rehearsing on the line, bow-tie wearing band members had their game faces on as they filed into the school gym.

“Start getting into your performance attitude, ladies and gentleman,” urged Bob Hackett, Moorpark High School band leader. “We really need to be quiet, mature and focused right now.”

In this audience, the forgiving countenances of parents and friends have been replaced by the critical gaze and discriminating ears of expert panelists.

It’s enough to make your violin bow wilt.

But Moorpark’s Michelle Spencer, 17, isn’t worried.

“I’m an old pro,” said the clarinet player, a veteran of several similar music festivals who finds a concert hall filled with peers and relatives much more intimidating. “You want to impress them so much.”

Chane Parker, 17, a saxophone player with Oxnard High School, displayed a similar philosophy, saying his sophomore insecurities of two years ago have yielded to senior confidence.

“I felt more pressure last time,” he said. “Music as a whole is a lot of fun.”

The Moorpark students performed with more on their minds than most schools. Each band member wore a green ribbon in memory of Scott Howell, 16, who died March 4 in a motor vehicle accident and was buried in his band uniform.

“Music has helped heal them,” Hackett said. “There’s still some fragility on the part of the staff and students, but we’re putting everything we can into the music and that’s helping us get through this.”

Underlining the mood is Wagner’s “Trauersinfonie”--a work Hackett describes as a funeral dirge--albeit one chosen long before Scott’s death. Yet Hackett is an effervescent conductor, whose sense of carefree abandon is reflected in the way the school orchestra plays.

“His sense of personality shows through in our music,” 10th-grader Michelle Schlatter said. “We don’t really think of [the Wagner work] as a funeral piece, at least I don’t.”

The judges at the music festival don’t go easy on these kids at their post-performance critique. Camarillo High School’s band, which has earned an “excellent” rating for the last six years, perhaps is pushed harder than most.

It doesn’t pay to be thin-skinned if you want to improve, said sophomore Robert Boulter, after he and the band’s other tuba player were singled out for criticism.

“We’re left alone a lot,” he said. “We could probably use a little more attention to what we’re doing.”

At the end of the day, Camarillo found itself with yet another “excellent” rating, just one below the top grade.

Still, this isn’t basketball, and winning has a different meaning here. For most students, it’s the process, not the final result that matters, said tenor sax player Doug Weyek, 17.

“I don’t care about ratings,” he said. “I just do it to have fun.”