Today the College of Musical Arts will kick off its 46th annual New Band Music Reading Clinic. It will include three days of hosting renowned conductors, Frederick Fennell and Thomas Duffy, 90 high school bands and numerous free concerts to the public.

The clinic not only allows University music directors the opportunity to read the newest band music, but it gives 200 high school students the chance to play music together for two and a half days. Students will audition for an Honor Concert Band; the band will perform at 3 p.m. Saturday in Kobacker Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center.

Three of the high school bands will headline the clinic’s two opening concerts. Lakota East High School’s band the Symphonic Winds, from Liberty Township, will perform at 1 p.m. on Friday in Kobacker Hall. Then at 4 p.m., the symphonic bands from Hoover High School in North Canton and the Akron Firestone High School will perform in Kobacker Hall.

The clinic is a very good recruiting tool for the University, according to the University’s Band Activities Office.

Even though, the high school bands play for the majority of the event, concert goers will be happy to know that the conductors will be interacting with the students by leading their peices.

Fennell is a professor of emeritus at the University of Miami and a principle guest conductor for the Dallas Wind Symphony and the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. In 1990 Fennell was inducted into the National Bandmasters Association Hall of Fame for Distinguished Band Conductors.

Duffy is the deputy dean for the Yale School of Music and the director of bands at Yale University. In 1996 Duffy was named Outstanding Music Educator of the Year by the Connecticut Music Educators Association.

About 800 high schools students, directors and guests are expected to attend this three day clinic.

Editor’s Note: For more information about this year’s New Band Music Reading Clinic, call the University’s Band Activities Office at: 372-6918.