Celebrating 51 years of the best musical talent of Arkansas' high school students, the All-State Music Conference continues today at the Hot Springs Convention Center.
Tom Street, executive director for the Arkansas Choral Directors Association, said more than 1,000 students are honing their skills this week at the conference from all across Arkansas. The annual conference, he said, is a joint effort by his organization and the Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association.
"I know there's 400 singers and there are several bands and orchestras so I'm guessing it's well over 1,000 students in grades nine through 12 from all over the state," Street said. "These kids start out in the fall trying out for All-Region and then, based on formulas, a certain percentage qualify to try out for All-State and they go to their All-Region concerts and all that good stuff.
"The ones that qualify for All-State, like for us, it's 960 kids. We started out with a little over 5,000. Then by the time we got to tryouts, we had 960. Then by the time we get through tryouts, we've got 400. So we've got the top 400 out of 5,000, and that's just the choir side. It's the same process for the instrumental -- they start out at region until the cream of the crop is here."
All concerts are free and open to the public, he said, with guest concerts starting today. At 1 p.m., the Arkansas Intercollegiate Choir will perform in Hall A of the convention center, and at 3 p.m. the Arkansas Intercollegiate Band will perform in Hall D. The ASBOA Junior High Honor Concerts will begin at 4:15 p.m. in Hall D and the evening Honor Choir concerts will start at 7:30 p.m. in Hall A.
The All-State concerts, he said, will begin Saturday morning at 10:45 a.m. throughout the convention center and Bank OZK Arena and continue through the day.
"Come one, come all. The more the merrier," he said.
Street said the organizations were separate years ago, but have for several years worked together to coordinate a week's worth of showcases of the state's musical talent.
"We like it the way we have now because, as you can see, this whole convention center is full of high school musicians," he said. "We like that. The two organizations have what's called a music conference board and that's certain officers of ASBOA and certain officers of ArkCDA, and they meet every year and do all the planning. It's a joint effort of the two organizations, and it's been that way for a long, long time."
Street said this will be his last conference -- something that has been a part of his life for decades.
"This is my last year. I'm retiring," he said. "There have been 51 (conferences) that our organization has sponsored and I've been to 47 of them. I took four years out to go to college. I was in All-State the first two All-States that we sponsored -- I was in high school. Then I went to college and I've been at every All-State since then as a director so, this is my last year on July 1."
Street said while the conference was in Pine Bluff for many years, and Little Rock for a few, the hospitality Hot Springs has shown the conference over the years is what keeps them coming back.
"We always want to share how hospitable Hot Springs has been," he said. "We love coming here. The public response and support we get is great.
"We had our conference for years at the Austin (now The Hotel Hot Springs & Spa) and I could remember when they were building this, it was just a concrete slab as far as you could see, and I said 'Boom. We could have All-State there.' We were in Pine Bluff and it was just because they had the facility that could house it all. When we were in Little Rock we had to be all over town so one convenient location, when I looked out there and saw that big concrete slab I said 'That could fit all of us.' We've been here ever since the convention center and we're real happy with it."
Local on 02/15/2019