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Hendrix to Host 2014 Festival of Winds

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CONWAY, Ark. (April 25, 2014) – Hendrix College will host the fifth annual Festival of Winds Honor Band for high school students in grades 9 –12 on Saturday, May 10.  

Eighty students representing 21 high schools rehearse from 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. and perform a concert at 7:30 p.m. in Staples Auditorium. 

High schools represented in the honor band include: Arkansas Baptist High School; Little Rock; Arkansas School for Math, Sciences, and the Arts, Hot Springs; Augusta High School; Augusta; Caddo Hills High School, Norman, AR; Central Arkansas Christian High School; Maumelle; Conway High School; Des Arc High School; Dover High School; Fountain Lake High School, Hot Springs; Gentry High School; Harmony Grove High School, Benton; Central High School, Helena-West Helena; Hermitage High School; Little Rock Christian Academy; Malvern High School; Paris High School; Parkview Arts – Science Magnet School, Little Rock; Rison High School; Russellville Junior High School; Two Rivers High School, Ola; Vilonia High School.

Featured on the program will be the Little Rock Wind Symphony conducted by Dr. Karen Fannin. The group will perform Ecstatic Fanfare by Steven Bryant, The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre (Matthew Roeder, conductor), and Millennium Canons  by Kevin Puts / arr. Spede.  The Festival of Winds Honor Band, Matthew Roeder, conductor, will perform Cenotaph by Jack Stamp, Overture for Winds by Charles Carter, Yorkshire Ballad by James Barnes, Simple Gifts by Frank Ticheli, and Black Horse Troop by John Philip Sousa. 

The guest conductor for the honor band is University of Colorado Associate Director of Bands Dr. Matthew Roeder. An Associate Professor, Roeder is the artistic conductor of the symphonic band and teaches instrumental conducting as well as music education courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He is in his 10th season as conductor of the Colorado Wind Ensemble, the only wind ensemble outside of academia in the Denver metropolitan area. An active clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor, Roeder has developed an international and national presence with recent professional appearances in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), France, Pennsylvania, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, Indiana, New York, Maryland, Ohio and Montana. He earned his doctor of musical arts degree in instrumental conducting and literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his master’s degree in music education with a conducting emphasis from the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University and his bachelor’s degree in music education from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. 

The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Hendrix music professor Dr. Karen Fannin at 501-450-1422 or fannin@hendrix.edu.

Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. For the sixth consecutive year, Hendrix was named one of the country’s “Up and Coming” liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report.  Hendrix is featured in the latest edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges, as well as the 2014 Princeton Review’s The Best 378 Colleges, Forbes magazine's list of America's Top Colleges, and the 2014 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.