McCracken Band at Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic

Just a reminder that on n Friday, December 16 at 11:00 AM the McCracken Middle School Symphonic Band will be serving as a demonstration group at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic. Gary Barton (bio below) is presenting a rehearsal lab session. The session will take place in the Grand and State Ballrooms on the 4th floor of the Palmer House. There’s a free shuttle from the Hilton that picks up and drops off by the coat check.

The Rehearsal Lab Sessions were introduced by the Midwest Clinic last
year:

The Midwest Clinic is pleased to present a series of six rehearsal labs, designed to provide rehearsal instruction to band directors in the most concrete, practical way that we can. Held in the Grand and State Ballrooms at the Palmer House, these are not clinics but actual rehearsals that pair middle school and high school bands with noted
rehearsal technicians. These rehearsals will include warm-up techniques and sight-reading, as well as rehearsals of pieces familiar to the bands. They are not intended to be polished run throughs, but dynamic learning opportunities that work toward building a sound and an understanding. The added benefit is that they have been planned with you in mind!

All rehearsals lab are presented in the round to give you your vantage point of choice. The schedule of shuttles that run between the Hilton and Palmer House has been increased to accommodate these events.

The repertoire used will be:
– Superior Band in Sixteen Weeks – Quincy Hilliard (Warm-ups, etc…)

– An Irish Rhapsody – Clare Grundman
– Song for the Winter Moon – Walter Cummings (Sightreading)
– A Sailor’s Odyssey – David Bobrowitz

I hope to see you there! Happy Holidays.

Gary Barton received the B.M.Ed. from the University of Louisiana – Monroe and the M.S.Ed. from Indiana University. He currently teaches at the Baker Sixth Grade Campus in LaPorte, Texas where he also works with all aspects of the middle school and high school band programs. His twenty-eight years of teaching have included positions in Meridian, Mississippi, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Jonesboro, Arkansas. In addition, Mr. Barton served as an Adjunct Instructor of Euphonium and Tuba at Arkansas State University for five years. He served as a member of the faculty of the Indiana University Summer Music Clinic for High School Students for twenty-five years. Mr. Barton is a past-president of the Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association and the East Central Mississippi Band Directors Association.

Mr. Barton has been published in The Instrumentalist, The Texas Bandmasters Association Review, The Leblanc Bell, British Columbia Band Talk, and The NBA Journal. He served the National Band Association as Southwestern Division Chairman (1998-2002), Board Member (2000-2002), and Second Vice-President (2002-2004). He is currently serving another term as NBA Southwestern Division Chairman and is a member of the Board of Electors for the NBA Bandmasters Hall of Fame, housed at Troy State University. He was the 1996 Baker Campus Teacher of the Year and was a 1998 inductee into the Band World Magazine Legion of Honor. Mr. Barton holds memberships in Phi Beta Mu, the American School Band Directors Association, the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, the Association of Concert Bands, the Texas Music Educators Association, and the Texas Bandmasters Association. Mr. Barton has made presentations on the campuses of Kansas State University, Marshall University (WV), Plymouth State University (NH), Mississippi State University, Georgia Southern University, and Henderson State University (AR). He has served as clinician and adjudicator in fifteen states.

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