Southeast Missouri State University student publication

Local high school Percussion Festival held at River Campus

Wednesday, March 3, 2021
High school ensemble percussion students play in groups at River Campus.
Photo by Dakayla Duckworth

Local high school percussion ensemble students had the opportunity to participate in a Percussion Festival at Southeast Missouri State University’s River Campus.

The day-long festival occurred Feb. 25 as a practice rehearsal clinic to prepare high school students for home concerts and future district music festivals.

The students practice in groups divided by their schools with clinicians Shane Mizicko and Christopher Whited to learn and receive feedback.

Mizicko, host of the festival, said he hopes students gained musical value from the clinic.

“It’s good that we have multiple schools participating in the clinic so students realize that a lot of schools are doing this around the area, as well. I hope students learned musical value hearing it from someone else,” Mizicko said.

This is the second annual year for the percussion festival, and more than 50 students participated. As of now, the third annual festival is scheduled to occur next year, according to Mizicko.

“If we can make it through this year with the COVID restrictions, we plan to have another festival next year,” Mizicko said. “I heard some of the schools say they were coming back next year, so that’s good.”

Farmington High School percussionist Mackenzie Cook said she gained a lot from the festival, but the main takeaway was teamwork.

“No matter how big a problem is, we’ll always pull away together,” Cook said.

Southeast percussion ensemble students performed at the end of the festival to encourage students to be involved with percussion after high school, and this is a great recruiting tool for SEMO.

Gloria Bennett, a Southeast junior ensemble musician, hopes to inspire more students to become involved with percussion after college and aspires to see more schools involved in the festival in future years.

“I would love to see more schools involved in the festival and the students who were involved know that we will always be here to help and just reach out if they need us,” Bennett said.

The Southeast percussion ensemble’s next concert is on Tues., March 23. For more information, visit https://semo.edu/music/events.html.

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