Music festival unites Gopher Conference at K-W

In the minutes leading up to the performance, the voices of students warming up could still be heard echoing through the halls of Kenyon-Wanamingo High School.

Those hours of preparation paid off at the Gopher All-Conference Music Festival and Fine Arts Showcase, where K-W choir and band students performed alongside students from the 11 other schools in the conference.

The Honor Band and Choir — composed of students from the entire conference — performed with guest directors Daniel James Felton and Kyle Eastman, respectively.

Felton was nominated for the 2023 Grammy Academy Music Educator of the Year and won a Gospel Choice Award for Instrumental Artist of the Year in 2021. He is currently the band director at Tartan High School.

Introducing him to the audience, K-W Director of Bands Claire Larson hailed Felton as “one of the leading music educators in the Twin Cities area.”

She also thanked her fellow band directors from the conference, who were in attendance, for their hard work in preparing students for the festival.

“These humans are truly amazing. Not only do they see your children every day of the week, but they come on Saturday to continue to work with your students,” she told the audience.

Felton addressed the audience before each piece, offering commentary or background information on the composers. His selections ranged from Omar Thomas’ rearrangement of the American folk song “Shenandoah” — with students snapping their fingers — to the “fun and festive” “Alegre” by Tania Leon, which gave the percussion students a chance to show off.

Before launching into Benjamin Yeo’s arrangement of the traditional Japanese song “Takeda Lullaby,” Felton spoke on how the themes of ancestry and memories of loved ones resonated with students and led to valuable discussion amongst the band.

“We had a wonderful time preparing this program,” said Felton.

Before capping off the band’s set, Felton announced a late change to the program, which was originally supposed to include “Orbital” by Adrian B. Sims.

“In preparing this piece, we said this piece can be played successfully but we want to give it the best run that we can. So I gave the charge to all the students to challenge their directors to have them play it at their respective schools within the next year,” he said.

Instead, Felton led students in a medley of pop songs including “Cake by the Ocean” and “Uptown Funk,” to demonstrate that popular music can be as “dense and complex” as other genres.

After a brief admission, K-W Choir Director Hannah Johnson thanked her fellow directors and introduced Eastman.

Eastman has served as the choral director of Northfield High School since 2011. He has also served as artistic director for The Singing Boys of Sioux Falls and interim instructor of secondary vocal methods at St. Olaf College.

“He’s wonderful and he’s been doing a great job working with these wonderful people,” said Johnson.

She also instructed the audience not to clap between the first two pieces, to not interrupt the flow of the program.

The students began with “A Path to Each Other” by Jocelyn Hagen and Timothy C. Takach, picking up the tempo — and switching languages — for Mozart’s “Viva!” without missing a beat.

Unlike Felton, who was talkative throughout the program, Eastman held his comments until the final song — when he also announced a change to the program, echoing Felton’s reasoning.

Instead of “Your Soul is a Song” by Jake Runestad as planned, Eastman guided the students through Melanie DeMore’s call and response song “One Foot/Lead With Love.” Eastman asked the audience to participate, saying the performance would bring “singing back to its roots,” when songs were shared orally and no one had printed lyrics to refer to.

After an energetic closing number, Eastman thanked parents for supporting music education and called for a round of applause for the choir’s piano accompanist Jan Strand.

He also spoke on how the music festival demonstrated the unifying power of music.

“What an incredible opportunity for these singers and instrumentalists to participate in something like this — to meet and to work with peers from other schools that perhaps, I’m making an assumption here, on fields of competition and courts of competition might be considered rivals, but in this setting we’re all one community,” said Eastman.

Outside the auditorium, K-W also exhibited student artwork from schools in the district.

In addition to K-W, the Gopher Conference includes Bethlehem Academy, Blooming Prairie, Hayfield, Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton, Maple River, Medford, NRHEG, Randolph, Triton, United South Central and Waterville-Elysian-Morristown.