This Saturday more than 100 high school students from across the state will descend on Eastern to perform at the Doudna Fine Arts Center for the 2012 EIU High School Honor Band Festival.

J. Corey Francis, the assistant director of bands, said this is his first year working with this event even though the department has done it before.

“It is a daylong event that high school students apply to perform in,” Francis said. “We break them into two bands, work with them all day and have a concert that night.”

Francis said it is also great recruiting opportunity for the department, which is why they will have admissions materials and specific admissions information about the music department available to the students in a booth set up in Doudna that day.

Throughout the day, high school students will have the opportunity to take master classes with the music department’s studio faculty.

“It gives them a chance to work with our faculty, see how they work and what they are all about,” Francis said.

Along with working with faculty, the high school students will also have the opportunity to interact with current Eastern students.

“Our students are our best ambassadors,” Francis said. “They are the ones who experience this all on a daily basis.”

The current students will be helping facilitate the day but will also being playing in the high school ensembles to help fill out certain instrument groups. The EIU Wind Symphony will also perform at the evening concert which is open to the public.

“It is good for the music education majors because they get to interact with students and become familiar with the literature they are playing,” Francis said. “This is probably they type of music they will be playing with their students when they get jobs as band directors.”

Francis said the department usually gets between 110 and 130 applicants, but typically accepts about 120. 

Applications are composed of an application by the student and a letter of recommendation from the student’s high school band director.

“It depends a lot on the instrumentation and the balance,” Francis said. “We may get 30 trumpets apply but cannot accept them all because we only need about 7-10 per group.”

Because it is only a day long festival, Francis said there is no formal audition process, just the written forms.

“It takes a lot of time for them to send something in and us to sit there and listen to them all,” Francis said. “Their directors know their playing and if they would succeed at this type of thing.”

In the end, Francis said it is all about having a good time and playing good music.

“You get to work with different groups and see what they can do,” Francis said.

The evening concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Dvorak Concert Hall.

 Amy Wywialowski can 

be reached at 581-2812 or 

          alwywialowski@eiu.edu.