New wind ensemble shines light on students’ talents

CEDAR RAPIDS - When Steve Shanley tells others to collaborate, he makes sure to lead by example.

The conductor of the Cedar Rapids Municipal Band decided the area's talented high school musicians deserved a community showcase and he went to Jim Miller and Steve Stickney, respective band directors at Washington and Linn-Mar high schools, to make it happen.

'I knew we would need some organized people that the students and parents and other band directors respected, and those two were the logical choice,” Shanley said.

The result of their cooperation is the Cedar Rapids Metro Area Youth Wind Ensemble. The group of 59 students who have just completed grades 9-12 at seven area high schools - Jefferson, Kennedy, Linn-Mar, Marion, Prairie, Xavier and Washington - will perform at 6:30 p.m. today at Bever Park in Cedar Rapids. The ensemble's free debut performance will precede the municipal band's 7:30 p.m. concert.

'We have in Cedar Rapids an unusually high concentration of strong high school band programs,” said Shanley, a former band director at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids. 'I think we would be hard-pressed to find another area in the state where the programs have this high a quality throughout. I was thinking, if we just used high school band students just from the Cedar Rapids metro area, it would probably be a pretty good group, and it would be fun for those students to play together.”

Miller and Stickney contacted their colleagues this spring and asked them to nominate student musicians for the ensemble. The duo then determined who should play which parts on the five selected pieces the ensemble will perform. Today's event will be the culmination of only three rehearsals.

'They're not by any stretch easy selections,” Stickney said. 'The quality of the students representing each of our metro programs really speaks highly of their musicianship to be able to put together such a program in such a short amount of time.”

For Shanley, the youth wind ensemble is a natural outgrowth of his efforts with the municipal band.

'When I became the conductor of the band four years ago, I wanted to make education and outreach to schools a part of what that group does,” he said. 'I wanted to supplement the great things the band was doing and providing to our community by adding an educational component to it and getting the involvement of high school students.”

These are students who likely have encountered each other, Miller said, but not in such a one-for-all setting.

'We think it's unique in that, if you think about what schools do and how competitive they are, especially in the metro with all of the sports teams and all the ways we bump into each other, it's unique that we can with music come together to create,” he said.

Stickney also noted that it's a chance for the students to improve.

'Many of them are at the top of their sections at the their schools,” he said. 'In this ensemble, they're playing with many other players who are at or above where they're at. Anytime you're in that kind of environment it makes you a better musician.”

All three directors have their eyes set on the ensemble's future. The plan is to eventually bring in college-level conductors to work with the young musicians.

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