Thousands of high school musicians descended upon the University of Missouri campus last month to participate in the 74th annual Missouri State High School Activities Association State Music Festival.
From April 30 through May 2, young musicians from high schools throughout Missouri scatter across Lowry Mall and 9th Street, finding places to set up stands and warm up before their solo & ensemble performances.
One of these students is Radost Mladenova, a junior from Marquette High School who plays viola.
“When you come here, you have to kind of figure out where is the best place for me to practice,” Mladenova said. “Where is there not going to be a lot of music or other instruments, because you do have to hear yourself.”
After warming up, musicians head to their designated performance locations on campus. Parents and band directors who’ve accompanied the performers are in the audience, but behind the scenes, Mizzou School of Music students volunteer to keep the festival running.
Matthew Kim is a second-year music education major who volunteered this year.
“It's actually more accurate to say volun-told, because as an undergraduate music major, I’m required to have at least one shift at the festival,” Kim said. “As a student, it’s exhausting because there’s a lot of people that I’ m not used to being around, but as the hall and room monitor, it was actually kind of fun getting to hear the students perform.”
Months of learning repertoire and a previous audition at the district level qualified these musicians for the state music festival. Tony Brown is the band director at Mehlville High School, and he says preparing for the festival has motivated his students to improve post-COVID.
“We’d always had kids involved, but this gave us an opportunity to help develop their individual playing,” Brown said. “And I think it has helped kick our program back to where it was before COVID, faster, so it's definitely a positive for the kids and positive for the whole program and everybody involved.”
The influx of people on Mizzou’s campus takes up parking spaces and crowds common areas. But if any bystander dares to brave the campus during next year’s festival, they can at least enjoy the sound of music in the air from students taking the next step in their musical journeys.
