April 19-April 21, Colorado Mesa Universityhosted thee choral ensembles of the Colorado West Music Festival. Middle and high school music students from around the state to compete, perform, and learn in multiple musical disciplines.
CMU vocal students will help host the event in addition to music directors from the competing schools and CMU music faculty. As in past years, the choral ensembles will be judged at CMU.
The event took place all of Thursday and Friday in the University Center Ballroom and Moss Performing Arts Center Love Recital Hall, and all day Saturday in Love Recital Hall. It will feature middle and high school bands, choirs, orchestras, jazz ensembles, and other instrumental and vocal groups. The ensembles will be judged in categories based on school size and type of musical discipline.
The Colorado West Music Festival is over 90 years running, and CMU has been hosting the choirs since the festival was first brought to the Performing Arts Center upon its construction in 1969 as Walter Walker Fine Arts Complex.
Dr. Monte Atkinson, Director of Vocal Ensembles and Professor of Music at CMU, will be one of the judges for the event. He says the festival is a way to help younger students learn and grow musically.
“It’s a benchmark performance evaluation,” Atkinson said. “It also gives students a chance to hear other groups like them perform.”
Atkinson said the event allows CMU students to take on leadership roles and take initiative in making sure the festival runs smoothly. Many students have spent the semester planning for the event. Claire Erickson, vocal arts student president, has spent the entire year organizing and planning for the festival with Atkinson.
In addition to background work, the students will also take on one of three shifts depending on seniority: full-day host, half-day host, or “shadower.”
“They act as hosts, judges’ assistants, door monitors, announcers, guides… They spend hours every day helping run it,” Atkinson said. “They learn how to run a festival, they learn how to work with current teachers and judges, and they plan for weeks or months. Our student choir officers do most of the work, and it’s really awesome.”
The festival also acts as a recruiting method for CMU. It gives students an opportunity to visit and experience a college-level music facility, which can increase their chances of choosing to attend CMU in the future.
“We have kids that, a year or two years later, call us up and say, ‘Can we audition for the music program at CMU? We were on campus and we loved it,’” Atkinson said.
The festival typically brings together between 4,000 and 5,000 students to compete. CMU faculty judge the groups and clinic them to help them improve in the future, building connections with the younger students that can draw them back to CMU and create a community between CMU and public schools.
“It’s a really great example of CMU and District 51 collaboration. It really gives us a chance to partner with our district public schools, which is good for CMU’s mission,” Atkinson said.
Atkinson looks forward to the event, which will have thousands of young musicians on campus with the guidance of CMU vocal arts students. He says the experience will be valuable for everyone involved.
“It brings an energy and brings many students and parents and schools from around the state and other states,” Atkinson said. “It’s a magnet experience that gets lots of young musicians and potential CMU students to our campus.”
