Mon, 05/01/2017 - 1:00pm

Camden Hills Regional High School student at the General Grant National Memorial in New York City.

Nancy Rowe and Kim Murphy

Camden Hills Regional High School student at the General Grant National Memorial in New York City.

Nancy Rowe and Kim Murphy

On April 29, the Camden Hills Regional High School choirs, under the direction of Kimberly Murphy and the CHRHS bands, under the direction of Nancy Rowe, attended the Heritage Music Festival in New York City. All five of the Camden Hills ensembles — Chorale, Chamber Singers, Women's Choir, Band and Jazz Band — earned gold awards, meaning that their combined score from all three judges landed in the 90-100 percentile of all schools in that class across the country.

In addition to the gold awards, the ensembles earned the following:

Women's Choir – third place

Chorale – second place

Choral Sweepstakes – highest combined vocal scores at the festival

Jazz Band – first place, Adjudicator Award (score of 92 or higher)

Concert Band – Adjudicator Award, Outstanding Band Group (highest scoring band at the festival)

Instrumental Sweepstakes – highest combined instrumental scores at the festival

Senior Nick LeClerc earned a "Maestro" award for his alto sax. solo and improvisational work with the Jazz Band

Finally, Camden Hills Regional High School earned the Festival Sweepstakes Award, which is awarded to the school that accumulated the highest number of points towards a perfect score of 300 points. Both directors also received written and taped comments from all adjudicators.

During the festival, the ensembles were judged by nationally known adjudicators as follows:

Band/Jazz Band

Jeff Campbell – Director of Jazz Studies, Eastman School of Music

Mike Carubia – composer and arranger, St. Joseph's College

Carl Strommen – composer and arranger, Long Island University

Choirs

Susan Avery – Professor of Music Ed., Ithaca College

Jose Calvar – Composer and Professor of Music, Syracuse University

E. Wayne Abercrombie – Director of Choral Activities, UMass-Amherst

Schools participating in the festival included ensembles from Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Washington, D.C., Florida, Canada, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

At the festival, schools are divided into classes based upon school enrollment.

Ensembles are rated on a national standard based upon the results of all Heritage Festivals across the country.

In addition to attending the music festival, students also were able to see the Broadway shows Wicked and School of Rock, take an evening dinner cruise/dance in New York Harbor and enjoy a thunderous adventure at Six Flags New England on the return trip. Directors and students would like to thank the five-town community and our chaperones for making this trip possible.

The students included:

Thomas Akselsen
Colby Arau
Gideon Baeza
Macy Barnhart
Anthony Benson
Hope Bifulcom
Tyler Bilodeau
Tristan Black
Danila Borodaenko
Emily Bowen
Katherine Bowen
Evie Bracher
Sophia Ernst
Sophia Campbell
Mallory Caron
Robbie Carroll
Tanner Castellano
Danica Cayouette
Ethan Cayouette
Abby Chamberlin
Henry Chamberlin
Karizma Chickering
Anna Christie
Audrey Clement
Sam Conlan
Conrad Crans
Greta Curtis
Alexis Cutliffe
Anna Daggett
Katherine Dailey
Kiara Derrig
Tysen DeWaard
Nick Doran
Tatum Dowd
Piper Dunton
Erica Durkee
Kane Emerson
Sophie Ernst
Kerry Ettinger