Music festivals are important components of society because they encourage people to bring out the best of their abilities in songs and dances. The festivals allow the participants and the audience to interact in an environment where entertainment as well as values can be exchanged freely. Scholars have argued that music is a vital component of education.
This is the major motivation for the design of this school music festival concert. The vision of this festival is to represent the interests of secondary school students to allow them express their abilities in singing, dancing and other performance related areas. The festival therefore is well placed to empower participating students within the town to ensure that they improve on their abilities in performing and singing.
Therefore, the festival aims at making schools establish a program within their school timetables, which can guide teachers and students wishing to participate. The timetables help students identify ways through which they can register for these activities (Education World 2011, p. 1).
The festival concert requires a lot of participation by educational administrators, government authorities, school music teachers and other professional bodies who can provide support on how a successful project can be effectively implemented. School administrators would be relied upon to help in designing music festival program in order to ensure that time allocated to school curriculum is not negatively affected by students performing in the music activities.
The festival would seek to include the views of school administrators, music teachers and relevant bodies that have expertise in music festivals. This would ensure that activities are conducted in the best way possible since they require active school participation. A feasibility study would be carried out to determine the probability of carrying out the festival annually, especially on programs that are to be part of the festivals in which the participating schools and students can specialize. (Shapiro 2009, p. 90)
It would be vital to carry out a study across the town to determine the activities and the events that can be co-opted to be part of the festivals so that schools are given various categories to compete with one another. The initial categories that can be used would be limited to songs and dance and the participants within these categories would have to ensure that there is a message which is relayed from the songs they participate in.
The schools would have to participate in lower preliminary rounds where they would have to compete in the categories provided from which the winners in these categories would advance to the next level. The festival is meant to be competitive in order to ensure high quality standards. This would encourage more participants to improve on their output hence come up with quality performances. (NAME 2011, p. 4).
There would be strict guidelines that would govern the rating of the participants concerning adjudication procedures that would be adopted. The judges chosen to adjudicate would undergo rigorous vetting to ensure that they measure up to the standards put in place to ensure that the spirit of fairness and integrity are upheld in the course of all activities undertaken in the festival.
The judges would be drawn from music tutors teaching in schools and also music trainers from the industry that can be relied upon to provide necessary vetting of participants’ abilities.
This would ensure that high quality standards set are delivered. The guidelines that will be used for rating and awarding points to all participants will be made clear to members of public and will be formulated in consultation with music teachers and judges who would have been chosen as adjudicators for the wide range of activities in which students will be participating (NAME 2011, p. 4).
The preliminary rounds would be carried out within schools with big multipurpose halls in zones in which the participating schools are located. This would require a mutual agreement with administrators of these schools. This would require that administrators open up their venues for external participants to ensure that all preliminary festival activities are not hampered by lack of venue.
The preliminary rounds will be designed to ensure that only the participants who measure up to the high standards of the competition are allowed to go on to the next stage of the competition while the losing participants will be eliminated.
The winners of the preliminary stages will be awarded trophies and other gifts as a way of motivating them to participate better in the next stage in which they choose to participate in. It will be necessary to have a big venue for the final events because the number of participants will have increased (Ferguson 2010, p. 37).
It will be vital to approach the town council to assist with a venue from which the festival can be conducted in the first two years to ensure that the logistical problems relating to a proper venue are easily dealt with. The town hall is a proper location for the event because it is easily accessible to all participating schools from the town as well as being big enough to accommodate the large numbers of participants that are expected to attend the final music festivals.
The hall has a large seating capacity which will be able to accommodate the projected large amounts of people that are likely to attend the festivals. The music festival design aims to attract a high level of interest from the public in an attempt to ensure that more people understand the meaning and the benefits music festival offers to the surrounding community and schools (Ferguson 2010, p. 38).
Anticipated Benefits of the School Music Festivals
The school music festivals focus at harnessing teenagers’ potential as well as endeavouring to develop their singing and performing abilities so that they can be nurtured to achieve a higher level of recognition. There festivals need to be funded adequately to ensure the logistics and prizes to be awarded are catered for satisfactorily to enable the festivals to be successful.
This funding will assist in conducting the festival activities without disruptions which majorly arise due to limited funding. Consequently, the festival ought to liaise with various stakeholders in an endeavour of coming up with ways of raising funds to guarantee effective carrying out of the festivals.
It would be as well imperative to fund proposals with various parties such as school administrators and the town educational authorities in order to make sure there are effectual suggestions regarding how the required funds would be raised to make the activities sail through without much disruption (Rainbow 1968 p. 67).
The festival organizing committee will consist of members who among them would be school teachers, administrators and professionals from multiple disciplines. These members will be highly relied upon in carrying out diverse activities relating to music festival. The committee will be charged with the responsibility of making decisions pertaining to various affairs of the festival.
Expected cash estimates that are likely to be incurred in the course of organizing the events will have to be deliberated by the committee in attempt to determine how the funds would be raised. The committee members will also have to plan on the calendar of activities that are to be undertaken during the duration of the festival.
The formulated calendar would be essential in helping the festival organizers to strategize on the annual financial projections which would guide the organisers in preparing annual budgets that would highlight the level of expenditure that is likely to be incurred (Vrettos 2006, p. 24).
Budgeting is necessary in ensuring sufficient funds set aside for the festival are utilized in accordance to the estimated financial projections as well as predicting the time frame the expenses would be necessary. The festival will seek to reach schools and see how effectually are they able to bear part of the costs which are expected to be incurred while participating in the festivals.
If possible, schools which would want to be part of the participants in the festivals would have to contribute agreed sums of money to a collective fund from which part of the budget for the festival would be drawn. If possible, the schools would have to contribute money annually to this fund to ascertain that expenses related with planning and organising the festival events form the preliminary to the penultimate stage are well catered for (LAO 2011, p. 67).
The festival will also seek to establish linkages with organisations which could be relied upon to assist in raising funds that are required to facilitate respective activities successfully. The organisational support that the sponsor would provide limitless benefits to schools and their students regarding how they can improve on their talents.
These organisations can participate through helping the festival organisers to meet part of their budgetary obligations which are specifically related to organising the annual festival activities. It would be morally right to avoid companies that are associated with the manufacture of alcohol, cigarettes or that deal with sex related products as part of the sponsors considering that the festival will target to uplift mainly underage youth (Boytim 2003, p. 28).
External funding of the festival by interested organisations will help the festival organisers to create mutual relationships that can have a lasting impact on the lives of students who enrol as participants in these festivals. The organisations that sponsor these activities are in a position to benefit from the exposure and free marketing which would be able to create more awareness about their brands, products and services offered at the market.
The sponsoring organisation will be granted exclusive rights concerning how its brand would be displayed during the festivals. This would help it have exclusive advertising rights in the locations where the festivals are going to be done. The increased awareness of the sponsoring organisation would largely help it to have a wider reach because more people will be aware of the activities it does and the benefits of these activities in the society (Cooper 20004, p. 48).
The festivals would as well offer ways through which the sponsoring organisation can gauge the level of awareness that exists in the market regarding the services and products the sponsoring organisation normally provides in the market. The organisation can devise strategies through which the participants and other stakeholders can be surveyed to provide information during the festivals concerning their experience with the organization’s services and products.
The sponsoring organisation will also stand a chance to gain recognition for the efforts made towards providing funds to the organisers because it will be serve as a basis of providing students with an insight into what is required for them to have a potential successful future in the music industry. This can be of great assistance once some of the participants in the festival clear their education and take on music as their full time career (Charlene 2009, p. 83).
Program of activities outline
The participants will go through two preliminary rounds before reaching the last stage where the winners of the preliminary rounds will have to compete with other participants who have won other preliminary rounds. The first preliminary round will take place in March of every year, while the second stage which will consist of winners of the first preliminary round will be held in May every year.
The finals stage will be held in august of every year after the schools have taken a break from their second term studies to avoid distracting students from the normal school curriculum programs. The participants will have to pay a fixed amount of registration fees which is yet to be determined in January every year before the event starts and they will only be allowed to participate in one category either song or dance (Wyer & Srull 1994, p. 193).
Second week of March- the initial stage where schools will compete in their zones and there are a total of eight zones according to the boundaries set. The schools will compete in two categories in the first year because the festival is still in its infancy and there is a high chance of two more categories being added on in future. The two schools that will emerge winners in these categories will proceed to the next preliminary round. Each school will be rewarded accordingly (Hur 2011, p. 1).
Second week of May- this is the second stage of the event which will comprise of 16 schools that will have emerged winners in the eight zones in the designated two categories. The winners, first, second and third runner ups will proceed on to the finals to be held in August. First and second weeks of August is when the finals will be done and a set of four schools each from the eight participating schools will compete in each of the designated two categories (Hur 2011, p. 2).
Each year, the festival will have relevant themes to the society which are directly related to social, economic and political issues that are prevalent to the society. It is expected that the messages will be targeting the youth who are in their adolescence to be aware of the social issues that are surround them in addition to understanding ways of dealing with them (Hur, 2011, p 3).
List of References
Boytim, J., 2003, the Private Voice Studio Handbook, Hal Leonard Corporation, New York, pp 24-28.
Charlene, R., 2009, Building Strong Music Programs. A Handbook for Pre-service and Novice Music Teachers, Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland, pp 79-83.
Cooper, L., 2004, Teaching Band & Orchestra: methods and material, GIA Publications, Chicago, pp 45-48.
Education World, 2011, Availability of Music Education Lags, Despite Knowledge of Its Benefits. Web.
Ferguson, I., 2010, Music, InfoBase Publishing, New York, pp 35 -39.
Hur, B., 2011, FOBISSEA Music Festival. Hosted by the British School Of Beijing, China, The British School of Beijing, Beijing, pp 1-3. Web.
League of American Orchestras, 2011, Does Music Matter? Research Says it does, Benefits of Arts Education, pp 1. Web.
National Association for Music Education, 2011. The Benefits of the Study of Music. Why we need music education in our schools, MENC, New York, pp 2-4. Web.
Rainbow, B., 1968, Handbook for Music Teachers, Taylor & Francis, London, pp 64-67.
Shapiro, A., 2009, making large schools work: the advantages of small schools, Routledge, New York, pp 90.
Vrettos, A., 2006, The Economic Value of Arts & Culture Festivals/ A Comparison of four European Economic Impact Studies, University of Maastricht, New York, pp 20- 24. Web.
Wyer, R., & Srull, T. 1994, Handbook of Social Cognition: Application, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, pp 191 – 193.