Two Blue Ridge School musicians won high awards in the 2018 Williamsburg Heritage Festival WorldStrides music competition on April 21. Blue Ridge School’s jazz band and the Barontones choir participated in this competition that included high school and middle school musicians from Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia.
The competition recognizes excellent musicianship during a performance by individuals. It awards only eight “Maestro” awards out of the hundreds of students participating in the festival. Of those eight, Blue Ridge garnered three:
Alex “Chiti” Tembo ’18 won two Maestro awards. The first for his solo vocal performance in “What’s Going On?” with the Jazz Band, and his solo in “Hey There, Delilah” with the Barontones, and the second for his rap lyrics on “What’s Going On?”.
Haedeun Kim ’18 won a Maestro award for his clarinet performance in “Ave Maria” with the choir (a rather difficult part, according to Mr. McGreal).
And EmmaLee Linaberry won for her vocal performance of “Whatever Lola Wants” with the Jazz Band. (Linaberry is a local Greene student who performs with the Blue Ridge jazz band and has had lead roles in the school’s musicals.)
The Jazz Band received the Outstanding Band Award – the top honor for a group – as well as Gold, First Place, in the Jazz Band Division 1A category and the Barontones received an Excellent rating from the judges in the Division 1A, men’s vocal category.
The Jazz Band is directed by Music teacher Mike Vinson, and the Barontones Choir is directed by the Director of Performing Arts Will McGreal.
The festival performances ran throughout the day at various venues. Each group was allowed 15-minutes on stage and a panel of three judges provided written and recorded feedback for each performance.
Following each performance, one of the judges conducted a mini-clinic on stage with the group, providing feedback and reinforcement for classroom instruction.
The final performance took place in the Irish section of Busch Gardens, where the awards ceremony was also held.
