Area high school musicians are pictured performing during a past Chautauqua County Music Teachers Association’s All-County Music Festival.

The Chautauqua County Music Teachers Association’s All-County Music Festival will return this year to Chautauqua Institution at 7:30 p.m. June 4.

Presale tickets are now available online at ccmta.ticketleap.com and will also be available at the door one half hour prior to the concert. Tickets are $5, children under five will be admitted free of charge. Parking in the institution’s main lot will be free.

Until June 2020, the association had annually sponsored a county-wide festival comprised of the top student musicians from the 18 school districts in Chautauqua County. Students are chosen by scores earned performing solos or by teacher recommendation, with the young musicians performing in one of five ensembles: the elementary, junior-high, or senior-high choruses, or the junior- or senior high bands. Each ensemble meets for one full day rehearsal before performing their repertoire for a robust audience in the Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater at 7:30 p.m. After all groups have performed, all groups come together to perform a finale.

Groups are organized and compiled by chairpersons — volunteers from the 87-member Chautauqua County Music Teachers Association — and the conductors for each ensemble are guests from around the country, chosen for their resumes.

The June 4 program will open with the All-County Elementary Chorus, under the direction of Amy Hartman. Hartman grew up on a grape farm in Brocton and later attended the State University at Fredonia where she majored in music education with a concentration in voice. She received her master’s degree in music education from the University at Buffalo. Hartman has been a music educator in the Hamburg Central School District for 14 years. She teaches chorus and general music at Hamburg Middle School. Mrs. Hartman is the chairperson for the ECMEA Jr. High South SSA Chorus and has presented at the ECMEA/NCMEA Classroom Music Showcase. She is also an active member of NYSSMA and ACDA. In her free time, Hartman sings in the Buffalo Choral Arts Society.

The Junior High All County Chorus, led by guest conductor Andrew Milne, will follow the Elementary Chorus. An avid conductor, singer, and music educator based in Massachusetts, Milne serves as director of choirs and theater at The Bromfield School in Harvard, Mass., working with students in sixth through 12th grades in three curricular choirs, an extracurricular choir, classroom music courses, and theater. Milne also serves as music director of the Westborough Community Chorus in Westborough, Mass., working with singers between the ages of 18 and 85, as well as being the assistant conductor with The Handel and Haydn Society’s Youth Choruses, working mostly with singers in fourth through ninth grades. In addition to his conducting, Milne is a regular chorister and has sung with choirs such as the internationally acclaimed choirs of Joyful Noise in Torrington, Conn., with Dr. Gabriel Lofvall, and the Worcester Chorus under Dr. Chris Shepard. His conducting teachers have included Dr. Vernon Huff, Dr. Edward Bolkovac, and Dr. Julie Hagen. In 2014 Milne was honored as the recipient of the Evangelyna Etienne Scholarship Award given by H+H to a member of the HHYC community for commitment and passion for vocal music. Milne is an active member of NAfME, ACDA, and Pi Kappa Lambda. He holds a bachelor’s in music education from SUNY Fredonia and a Master’s in Music Education: Choral Conducting from The Hartt School, University of Hartford.

The Junior High All County Band’s guest conductor will be David Knott. Knott is a professional percussionist, educational leadership advocate, and professional conductor. He serves as a member of the instrumental music faculty at the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pa., coordinating and directing all Middle Division Band activities. Knott’s previous work experience also includes directing the percussion studio and teaching courses on Percussion for Music Education and Percussion for Music Therapy at Elizabethtown College and Messiah University. As a leadership advocate, he founded the Central Pennsylvania Wind Conductors Society, whose mission is to provide a forum to elevate individual music educators through mentoring, professional collaboration, and performance opportunities for student ensembles. Knott earned his Bachelor of Science in Music Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Music Degree in Percussion Performance from Michigan State University. He has also studied with Jack Stamp, John Whitwell and various workshop clinicians to gain extensive conducting background.

Leading the Senior High Chorus will be Dr. Brian Kittredge. Kitteredge is an active clinician and guest conductor and has appeared at choral festivals in Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi and New York. He is serving as the Youth and Student Activities Coordinator for the Alabama Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association and serves on the artistic faculty at the New York State Summer School of the Arts, where his choirs have appeared in several concerts at the Chautauqua Institute and SUNY Fredonia. Kittredge has studied under the mentorship of Kenneth Fulton, William Weinert, and Peggy Dettwiler.

The Senior High Band will perform under the baton of Brian Balmages, an award-winning composer and conductor. His music has been performed throughout the world with commissions ranging from elementary schools to professional orchestras. World premieres include Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. His music was also performed as part of the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service, which was attended by both President Obama and Vice President Biden. He is a recipient of the A. Austin Harding Award from the American School Band Directors Association, won the 2020 NBA William D. Revelli Composition Contest with his work Love and Light, and was awarded the inaugural James Madison University Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Visual and Performing Arts. In the same year, he was commissioned by his other alma mater, the University of Miami, to compose music for the inauguration of the institution’s sixth president, Dr. Julio Frenk.

?ince the 1960s, the concert’s finale has been Wilhousky’s arrangement of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” performed by a combination of the junior and senior bands and choruses. It has been traditionally conducted by a new retiree from one of Chautauqua County’s school districts. This year the finale will be directed by guest conductor Helen Ihasz, retired in June 2021 as the band director at Westfield Academy and Central School.

Ihasz is a Wisconsin native, receiving her bachelors and masters degrees in music education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a double major in instrumental and choral music. Her teaching experience includes a wide variety of levels and subjects in general, choral, and instrumental music in the public schools. She also taught beginning conducting at SUNY Fredonia, and is a certified NYSSMA judge. At the NYSSMA conference of December 2019, Ihasz presented a session called “Paying it Forward: Mentoring Student Teachers.” She mentored 51 student teachers during her time at Westfield. She studied flute with Robert Cole, formerly of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and she has studied conducting with James Smith, Steve Peterson, John Paynter, Mallory Thompson and Paula Holcomb. In 1993, she was the recipient of a Summer Fellowship at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., one of 10 teachers from around the country chosen for this program. Ihasz has been an active member of the Chautauqua County Music Teachers Association, holding a variety of executive board positions for several years.

The concert itself lasts under two hours, but the time and preparation that go into the festival far exceed that moment in time on stage. Students begin rehearsing their music as soon as they receive it from their chairperson, sometime in early spring.

On the day of the concert, these dedicated student musicians will begin arriving on the grounds between 8 and 8:30 a.m. for a prompt 9 a.m. rehearsal start. The day continues with more rehearsals, lunch, and a few small breaks in between, until the students have dinner and dress for the concert.

A grant from The Reg and Betty Lenna Fund at the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation assist in making this festival possible. There are several expenses involved in a concert, not the least of which is providing each of the students with multiple published scores of music from which to study and perform. These purchases total thousands of dollars. Funding from the CRCF greatly aids in these expenses. Portions of the sheet music have also been provided with support of the Instructional Media Center at Erie 2-Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES, which facilitates access and housing for the sheet music collection.

The 2022 CCMTA Scholarship winners will be presented to the audience at this concert. On May 4, the association hosted scholarship auditions at Cassadaga Valley Central School. Scholarships are awarded to Chautauqua County music students for summer music camp, private instruction or toward college expenses, should the student choose a career path in music.

Scholarship award winners are as follows:

ENIOR-to-COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS ($500)

Trenton Shutters, Tenor, Southwestern

Tesa Cameron Karcz, Snare, Silver Creek

STUDIO/LESSON/MUSIC CAMP ($400)

Meghan Mistretta, Euphonium, Jamestown

Marencia Bohn, Voice, Brocton

Elsa Lumia, Violin, Regis-Green

Timothy Branden III, Mallets & Snare, Fredonia

INTERMEDIATE MUSICIAN ($100)

Taren Laska, Trombone, Frewsburg

James Mullen, Bari Sax, Cassadaga

YOUNG MUSICIAN ($100)

Sarah Sigler, Trumpet and Piano, Southwestern

Gracie Sigler, Flute and Piano, Southwestern

Zoe Chitester, Violin, Regis-Green

In addition to the Spring All-County Festival and providing music study scholarships, the Chautauqua County Music Teachers Association also sponsors a Winter All-County Music Festival each February featuring the Elementary Band, Women’s Chorus, Jazz Chorus, Percussion or Brass Ensemble, and the Jazz Ensemble. CCMTA runs a solo festival in February, where students prepare and play for a state-certified music adjudicator, who in turn provides the student with valuable comments and tips on how to improve his or her musicianship.