WCHS band members headed to music camps

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

High school band members attending special music camps this summer include, from left, Jay Koelbl, Hannah Tilton, Megan Tucker, John Weitzel and Joseph West. Not pictured, Jesse Langston. (Will Stewart photo)

While many of their classmates are settling into a summer of leisure, six members of the Warren County High School band are taking advantage of their vacation to receive elite specialty training in their respective fields of music.

Percussionists Jay Koelbl and Joseph West have been chosen to attend a drum camp next month sponsored by Drum Corps International. Taking place at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, the camp will bring together percussion ensembles from across the Southeast to learn assorted playing, marching and leadership techniques from many of the nation’s top percussion instructors.

Attending the Bands of America Summer Symposium at Illinois State University in Normal, Ill., next week will be drum major Megan Tucker and trombonist John Weitzel. Billed as the “ultimate summer experience” for band students, the symposium will bring together students from 35 states and several countries.

While there Tucker will receive specialty drum major training, while Weitzel will participate in the symposium’s jazz band component. Both students will be under the tutelage of world renowned musicians.

French horn player Hannah Tilton will spend five weeks this summer at the internationally acclaimed Sewanee Summer Music Festival at the University of the South. To attend she first had to take part in a rigorous audition process in which she competed against the top music students from across the world. At the program she will join more than 200 aspiring young musicians from across the United States and abroad.

Learning from more than 50 teachers, performers and internationally recognized musicians, Tilton and her advanced peers will receive musical training of the highest caliber and take part in a concert series which will prepare them for the demanding challenges professional musicians must meet.

Currently attending the prestigious Governor’s School for the Arts at MTSU is clarinetist Jesse Langston. The intensive month long program will give Langston and other top music students from across the state the opportunity to work individually and in groups with top notch musicians to improve both their knowledge and understanding of music as well as their abilities to compose and perform music.

These six young musicians, whom band director Duane Farnham described as “the cream of the crop,” will join the rest of the band’s members for one of two pre-band camps to be held later next month at the high school, as well as a full band camp to be held at Tennessee Tech in late July and early August.

Farnham invites all interested parties to attend the next Band Booster meeting, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. July 8 inside the high school band room.