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TownOnline.com - Arts Lifestyle: Music festival coming to Harvard's Bromfield

TownOnline.com - Arts Lifestyle: Music festival coming to Harvard's Bromfield
Ram Stone  |  by www.townonline.com. All rights reserved. 10.11 | 17:09

Friday, October 20, 2006 The 80th annual New England Music Festival will be held at The Bromfield School in Harvard. March 15, 16 and 17, concluding with a concert at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium Saturday, March 17.

The New England Music Festival, begun in 1927, is the predecessor of the All-State, District and Regional Music Festivals in all six New England States.

More than 23,000 students from all six New England states have been members of the New England Music Festival Bands, Orchestras and Choruses for the past 79 years.

The many famous alumni of the festival include Vic Firth, percussionist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Card, former chief of staff for President George W. Bush, and Scott Wahle, morning news anchorman at WBZ-TV, Channel 4 in Boston.

Many of the most famous band, choral, and orchestra conductors from across the United States have been conductors of New England Music Festival ensembles. John Philip Sousa actually conducted the first All-New England Massed Band on the Boston Common in 1927. Conducting the band at the March 17 festival will be Lt.

Col. Michael Colburn (himself a NEMFA alumnus), conductor of the President's Own United States Marine Band in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Michelle Holt of Providence College, a former teacher and member of the NEMFA, will conduct the chorus, and the orchestra will be conducted by Dr. Federico Cortese, artistic director of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra and the New England String Ensembles and a former assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa.

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The festival is open to all high school students in grades nine to 12 from all six New England states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. In order to be selected to participate in the concert festival, students must receive a favorable rating at one of the three Solo/Ensemble Festivals sponsored by the New England Music Festival Association, Inc. (NEMFA).

The Northern Regional Solo/Ensemble Festival will be held at Hartford High School in White River Jct., Vt. Saturday, Dec.

2. The Eastern Regional Solo/Ensemble Festival will be held at Belfast High School in Belfast, Maine Saturday, Dec. 2, as well.

The Southern Regional Solo/Ensemble Festival will be held at Smith Middle School, Glastonbury, Conn. Saturday, Dec. 9.

Registration for the NEMFA Solo and Ensemble Festival is now open, through Nov. 1. To register students for this event visit the NEMFA Web site, www.

nemfa.org. While the NEMFA encourages individual schools to join with a membership fee of 25, parents also may join the Association for 25 so that individual students may participate in the Solo/Ensemble and Concert Festivals.

Read more on by www.townonline.com. All rights reserved.
Keywords: New England, Music Festival, New England Music, England Music Festival, England Music, Regional Solo Festival, England States, Regional Solo, Symphony Orchestra, New England States
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