I participated in the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association (ASMTA) regional state festival for the first time this spring. I’ve now lived through a full-year cycle of teaching which included the Northwest Arkansas Music Teachers Association (NAMTA) Sonatina Festival last fall. This event was held on Saturday, April 14th, in the music building at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. From the moment I arrived, some minutes before 8 a.m., the halls were filled with kids and their parents. My four students were scheduled later in the day, and I managed to see all of them at some point during the day.
However, the experiences were extremely different. The Sonatina Festival is solely a performance-based event, with none of the theory, technique, sight reading, and ear training that are a key part of the state event. However, the regional state festival is very worthwhile to the students who participate. But it is not for the recreational piano student. There is a lot of work required to prepare a memorized program in addition to doing the musicianship and theory work that is tested separately.
The good news is that all my kids played well. All of them scored in the superior range. In fact, one of my students did well enough to be considered as an alternate to go to the state finals! As for the other testing, there were mixed results. Two of the kids did pretty well, one did okay, and another, well, missed the boat as the expression goes.
Due to the nature of the festival, where each student tests and plays at different times, I wasn’t able to get a group photo. However, below is a picture of their ribbons, placed on top of a blank certificate. I am grateful to the committee who lost a lot of sleep doing the advanced planning. Many of my fellow NAMTA teachers donated their entire Saturday to run the festival. As always, they were very generous sharing their teaching insights with me. Finally, thanks to the parents and kids without whom there would be no point to any of this!
