By 5:45 p.m. Friday, the dense heat was broken up by intermittent breezes, which provided some cool comfort for a group of students in the back of Le Roy Junior-Senior High School.
They weren’t playing baseball or having a picnic, or goofing around at all. Students and music teachers were at the tail end of a three-hour practice in prep for Saturday’s Genesee-Wyoming Music Educators Association All-County chorus and band concerts. The band room doors were wide open, leaking out a steady rhythm of brass, woodwinds and percussion.
This is Kiptyn Cone’s first all-county event, and he’s enjoying it, he said. His favorite performance piece is “Metal Heads,” which, as the name implies, features a lot of heavy metal style and metal sounds, including cowbells and brake drums. A fifth-grader from Le Roy, Kiptyn is a percussionist who really appreciates the full drum set.
“With all the toms and the snare drum and bass drum with the foot pedal and high hat and splendid cymbal,” he said during a quick break.
The 10-year-old is following in his older brother’s footsteps, but he also believes the drums have an important role in a band.
“They’re keeping the beat, kind of the rest of the band depends on the percussion, the drums in particular. And because we’re the ones like, boom, boom, boom, keeping the beat so they know what to follow,” he said, sharing how he feels about Saturday’s concert. “I’m actually not feeling nervous. I feel pretty prepared. I feel like I know my stuff.”
Kiptyn is far from alone in this being his first all-county music festival. With COVID-19 and the shutdown of schools and most everything, the festival was swept up in that as well. Kids missed out on those opportunities for four years.
Dan Klinczar, vice president of the GW Music Educators Association, is not even sure if 10th graders ever had the chance to participate in all-county. The festival involves all school districts in Genesee County, plus Attica from Wyoming County.
“So for most of the students and all the junior high, and all of the elementary, this is their first all-county experience. So they get to work with a guest conductor, and they get to work for a long time. It's a long practice. So it's a really good opportunity for them to make music with other really strong and dedicated musicians across the county, which is the really cool thing,” Klinczar said. “That's the pinnacle of what musicians want to do -- make music with others. “It’s getting together today and tomorrow before the concert. They'll rehearse tomorrow from nine to 1:30 back in the same spot before they do a concert.
"And like I said, it’s a culminating event for them, you know, and this is supposed to be a mountain experience for kids because it's the opportunity for them to make music with others, and see that people across the county and outside of their small little niche of their own school who can make music and have fun together," he said. "And we’ll be awarding a couple of awards tomorrow. “
The John Mikalski Memorial Career Scholarship will be presented to seniors Evan Williams and Jackson Cain, both of Le Roy.
At 18 and about to graduate, Cain is debating which college to attend. It’s an 80-20 split, with Fredonia State College carrying more weight than Nazareth, he said, to pursue a degree in music education. He’s on a career track to teach music and, hopefully, right in his own hometown.
He is eight years older than Kiptyn and every bit as passionate about the percussion section.
“I think, with all the other tonic instruments, like the ones that have the pitches and all that, it's very easy to express yourself. And I liked that. But with something like a snare drum or a drum set, it's more difficult to bring that out. And I think that's really cool that you can, you know, if you hear someone play a snare drum, you're expecting like, oh … military,” he said. “And then if they come out, and they play the solo that's like, oh, wow, I get expression through this, even though it's just one pitch, I still get that story, and I get what is happening. So I think that's really cool. That you can take something almost one dimensional as a snare drum and turn it into something that's like, artistic and beautiful like that.”
He admitted that, at first, he wasn’t looking forward to a three-hour after-school practice. But then there’s something about several strangers coming together to create something brand new together.
“And then just like, instantly, it all comes together, because we're all practiced, and we all know what we're doing. And it's like, wow, it's like, it's just super fun that, off the ground floor, we all have a very strong understanding of the pieces,” he said. “And we really get to hear these, you know, live, and it's like, we get to watch them grow and build, it's really, really cool. I love every bit of it.”
Cain credits music teacher “Mr. N" (Nordhausen), who first taught him in fourth-grade band, has a sense of humor and other similarities that Cain can relate to, and is a fifth and sixth-grade band teacher; and Miss Dotts, “an incredible band teacher” for grades seven through 12.
The future high school graduate also described a pivotal moment that validated what he wanted to do in life. When a band director was out sick, Cain was picked to fill in, and he worked with students in band camp. He taught drumline and how to march, and afterward realized that he helped those kids.
“And even from then on, it's like, it's helped me realize a lot of things about myself, like marching band specifically was one where I realized if I apply myself, I will see the results that I want. If I really work hard, and I really focus on something that, if I'm passionate about it, I'll see the results that I want,” he said. “And then, of course, the no-brainer’s music education, and then, finding that this is a huge passion for me, and I love doing this and … this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to cultivate this experience for other kids.”
Photos by Howard Owens
