The backbeats were at the forefront at the University of Rhode Island’s Fine Arts Center on Saturday for the 25th annual Rhode Island Percussion Ensemble Festival.
The event, put on by the Percussive Arts Society, featured nine ensembles representing eight middle school, high school and community groups. Kyle Forsthoff, the classical percussion specialist at URI, organized this event as the Rhode Island chapter president of the PAS.
The PAS is dedicated to providing services that foster growth for percussionists around the country at all levels, according to their website. The Rhode Island Chapter has been organizing this festival since 2000.
It is important for musicians to listen to and learn from other musicians and groups, according to Forsthoff. Some of the students at the festival agreed with Forsthoff.
“My favorite part of this festival has been being able to listen to all of the other bands and seeing how they come up with their own ways of tackling each song,” Woonsocket High School senior vibraphone player, Baramet Sithtaphone, said.
As a festival and competition, three adjudicators from the PAS scored and gave comments to the ensembles that performed.
“I think the adjudicators are instrumental in the fact that I can’t provide the same feedback for my students,” Woonsocket High School band director, Marilyn Daniels, said. “It comes from someone so credible in the field.”
One of the adjudicators at the event, Aaron Cote, hoped that his comments help identify both places of excellence and improvements for each of the ensembles.
“We want people to know where they stand against themselves,” Cote said. “It’s not a competition between the bands; it’s really about learning from year to year and finding accomplishments.”
The event also had cultural significance for the young musicians in the area, according to Cote.
“We live in a culture that thrives on arts, even when we don’t know they exist,” Cote said. “Musicians need your support, and you need their support.”
This was Woonsocket High School senior xylophone player William Zhu’s third time at the festival and he enjoyed the music presented at the event.
“Playing in this event inspired me to see that there’s more to music than just what is seen,” Zhu said.
After the student groups performed and were judged, guest clinician and Rhode Island native percussionist Anthony Soscia gave a talk and interactive presentation to the bands and audience members at the event on purposeful practice.
“Practice is the foundation of growth in the music world and pretty much anywhere in life,” Soscia said.
When you are practicing, you are alone with yourself and your instrument. That creates a different dynamic, Soscia said.
The amount of time you practice doesn’t necessarily equal how much you will improve according to Soscia. It is important to work smarter, not harder.
After the initial presentation, Soscia invited students to the stage for a demonstration on how to practice different rhythms using a metronome in a couple of different ways. 16 students came up onto the stage and tried to clap on beat.
At the end of the festival, The Ronald N. Stabile Memorial Trophy was presented.
Stabile was a professor who taught at URI and used to help run the Rhode Island Percussive Arts Festival. Since his passing, the ensemble that gets the best score receives a trophy in his honor.
“25 years ago, my predecessor set up this event as a way to bring together the percussion ensembles from high school and middle school programs,” Forsthoff said.
This year, The Ronald N. Stabile Memorial Trophy was awarded to the North Smithfield High School Percussion Ensemble for their performance of “Technology,” directed by Kevin Plouffe.
