5th Annual MSUM Invitational Orchestra Festival Oct. 12-13

MSU Moorhead offers the fifth annual Invitational Orchestra Festival for Middle and High School Orchestras on Monday, October 12 and Tuesday, October 13. Performances and clinics will take place in the Roland Dille Center for the Arts Hansen Theatre.

This year’s event features 13 school orchestras involving over 750 string students. In addition to seven Fargo-Moorhead area schools, groups from Crookston, New Brighton, Champlin, Woodbury, and Minneapolis will participate.

The goal of the festival is to encourage the musical growth of area orchestra programs by providing teachers and students with a unique opportunity for performance and feedback early in the school year. Each orchestra will receive written and recorded comments (no scores or ratings) from guest clinician Dr. Michael Hopkins and MSUM faculty member Dr. Kirk Moss. Following each performance, the adjudicators will present an in-depth, on-stage, clinic.

Participants may also attend a special workshop entitled “Meeting National Standard 3: Improvising Melodies, Variations, and Accompaniments.” This workshop is led by MSUM string-faculty-member Brian Roessler, double bass/bass guitar.

“It’s especially gratifying to welcome so many out of town groups to MSUM for this year’s festival,” said Kirk Moss, the festival’s founder and director. “Given the rising costs of travel, school orchestra directors, string students, and parents clearly value this unique educational opportunity.”

Guest clinician Dr. Michael Hopkins is an associate professor at the University of Vermont where he conducts the University of Vermont Symphony Orchestra and serves as music director of the professional Burlington Chamber Orchestra. He is the author of 25 published music compositions and arrangements with Alfred, Kendor, and Grand Mesa Music. His website, The String Pedagogy Notebook, has received worldwide recognition.

For additional details, call (218) 477-4099.

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