Music Ed Mentor Podcast #040: Festival Preparation

Festivals are a fantastic tool for both recruiting and retaining students. They can help engage your more advanced musicians while providing others with an incentive to improve. They’re also a great way to collect quantifiable data to help ensure the continuation of your program and the support of your administration. This episode is dedicated to everyone who gets to take students to festival. Our goal is to help you streamline the logistics of festival prep while ensuring your ensemble sounds great and everyone has a great time.

Joining me in the discussion is David Knott, music education specialist, professional percussionist, leadership advocate, and middle school band teacher at the Milton Hershey School.  David is also the founder of the Central Pennsylvania Wind Conductors’ Society and conductor of the Hershey, Pennsylvania Mozart and Friends Festival Orchestra.

We’ll discuss questions you may have thought of, and some you didn’t, including:

• What about privacy policies for your students’ medical forms?

• Who should you recruit to be chaperones?

• How do you best use time with a visiting clinician?

• Can you provide a quality festival experience without travel resources?