Be Committed

What an exciting and challenging time for the Alabama Bandmasters Association. This school year will see perhaps the most drastic change in the history of our organization with the implementation of our ABA Music Performance Assessment. The board and MPA committee have worked diligently to foresee and solve problems before they occur, but we know there will still be issues to face. The board has accepted this challenge and is unified in their commitment to make our Music Performance Assessment a success. Thanks to their hard work at our summer meeting we now have our first official ABA Music Performance Assessment Adjudicator List. More information concerning the process for adjudicator certification will be forthcoming from Mr. Harry McAfee and the certification committee.

In order to help directors have a clearer understanding of MPA sight reading expectations, we will post the ‘UIL sight reading Criteria’ used for music selection for each band classification I would like to thank John Cooper and the Music Selection Committee for their work at the summer meeting. We now have our cumulative list updated and are in the process of adding more selections from the Teaching Music Through Performance series.

We also have two other committees at work on different projects. One committee is focusing on improving our present Solo/Ensemble Festival while another will be assessing the success of our new All State Bands format.

There will be two proposals to be voted on at our AMEA Conference meeting. One concerns the offering of a “Comments Only” opportunity at the Music Performance Assessment. The other concerns establishing a fiscal year and auditing process for the financial accountability of our organization. Please read over these proposals so that you may be able to cast an informed and responsible vote.

In response to our professional development clinics at the Summer Conference we are going to offer a link on our web site to view and copy handouts from our outstanding clinicians. We hope this will be a great resource for our own directors as well as others who visit our web site looking for ideas to better their own programs.

As you can see, there are great opportunities for growth as we meet the many challenges ahead. I urge you to take advantage of the professional development offerings at our upcoming AMEA Conference. We must never become complacent. We must continue to look for ways to improve individually and corporately. We must be unified in our purpose and committed to make the Alabama Bandmasters Association the very best that it can be. As always, if I can be of assistance, please let me know.