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Annual band festival offers high school students new opportunitiesEvents
132 high school students got to work with Rossano Galante, a guest composer at the 21st annual Quad State Honor Honor Band Festival on Sunday and Monday. Peyton Beyers | The Volante
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Annual band festival offers high school students new opportunities

January 29th, 2019 Lauren Soulek Events, Verve comments

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The 21st annual Quad State Honor Band Festival was held in Aalfs Auditorium on Sunday and Monday. 132 high school students from South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota were selected to be a part of the two-day festival.

John LoCognata, USD director of bands, said high school students can submit applications and be selected to be a part of two honor bands during the festival. The top band is the symphonic band, which LoCognata conducted, and the second band is a concert band, which Dr. Todd Cranson, USD director of athletic bands, conducted.

“The bands rehearse starting on Sunday, Jan. 27 and then they rehearse through Monday, Jan. 28,” LoCognata said. “Then on Monday evening we do a concert. They will have been sent the music that we’re going to perform but we’ll never have played together until that moment.”

Two things LoCognata said are different for this year’s Quad State Honor Band Festival is that the students got the chance to have a masterclass with USD’s applied music faculty and they brought in a guest composer.

“Our composer is Rossano Galante and he writes some really wonderful music for bands,” LoCognata said. “He’s a film score composer and he’s done a lot of stuff in L.A., so having him on campus is going to be really cool. We’re playing two of his pieces with the top group and two of his pieces with the second band. He’s going to conduct his music.”

Hannah Cooper, a junior clarinet player from Dakota Valley High School, said she enjoyed working with the guest composer.

“It’s been really cool getting to play with Rossano Galante,” Cooper said. “I also thought it was cool how it actually got put together really quick because we’ve never played them before.”

Todd Cook, Norfolk High School band director, said he’s brought students to Quad State Honor Band Festival for the past four years. This year he brought 12 students and he said it’s a great chance for them to work with two USD directors, the guest composer and other students.  

“It’s a great experience for them to get to play with students from South Dakota and Iowa and Minnesota,” Cook said.  

LoCognata said they try to send out information about the festival “as far and wide as we can.”

“We target South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota, so we get representation from those four states traditionally,” LoCognata said. “I’m sure at some point they’ve had a North Dakota person and they’ve had a Wyoming person and this, that and the other, but that’s our quad-state region that we’re really active in recruiting from. We’ve got 31 different schools represented from this 132 students.”

LoCognata said the festival is also a great recruiting tool for the university.

“I think it’s always important that the students that come here see us because really it’s a recruitment event,” he said. “We want to entice them to come to USD and study music. Having a guest composer also gives them a chance to work with an outside person.”

LoCognata said his favorite part about the festival is just having the high school students on campus.

“It’s getting to know them and also getting to know the band directors,” LoCognata said. “We’re still new to the area so this gives us the opportunity to work with those band directors and see where they are, what they need and how we can help them in the future.”

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Lauren Soulek

Lauren Soulek is a junior from Delmont, South Dakota studying Media/Journalism and International Studies at the University of South Dakota.

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"I like a lot of music a lot of other people like, so if I’m just playing a lot of loud music to a crowd and getting paid for it, that sounds awesome."
"The nature here is amazing. The Vermillion River, the park, hanging out with my friends and I like cooking."
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"I very much care for my family and try to take care of them in any way I can. Part of that when I lived in California was trying to take the stress off of my parents. I would do everything around the house: cooking, cleaning, yard work, taking out the trash, grocery shopping."
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"I can deal with his (stuff), and he can deal with mine. We’ll be up until four in the morning."                         "We’re just social people, we like to talk and have a good time."
"I’ve definitely met people who are more free-spirited and not judgmental and more interested in the same things as I am. I studied abroad last summer in Ireland."
"(If I could go back) I would’ve stuck with basketball and played basketball in college. I just feel like I missed out on an opportunity. I still could’ve gotten a business degree while playing basketball. I just wish I would’ve worked harder at it. I played at first and then I quit. I signed at USF, University of Sioux Falls. I played summer ball with them, with their team, so I didn’t get to experience the full effect."
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"My favorite artist is my band, Bread of Stone. We are growing up with Christian music and we have a lot of shows too. We already have a couple albums out."
"I was a sophomore in high school when my grandma Betty passed away, and it was two years before that when my grandpa Walter passed away. I don’t remember much of Betty because she had Alzheimer’s, so we would go see her once or twice a year in her home. I know that she liked to bake a lot. She would bake all kinds of things — cookies, pies, cakes. She was known for her little tea parties when we came over. The only thing I remember is her sitting in the back porch with my grandpa when we would go to visit them before they both moved to homes. I remember lots of my grandpa. He was a fiery, grumpy old man. He used to give us Sunkists and cookies every time we went to see him. We’d bring him meals when he still lived in his house, and later when he had moved, we would take him to church every Sunday and go for hour long drives that he loved and we all had to suffer through."

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