Sigma Alpha Iota

16 Fall 2023 • sai-national.org Cducting Attending the ASCI This spring, I was honored to receive a Sigma Alpha Iota Professional Development Grant to attend the Atlanta Summer Conducting Institute (ASCI), which took place at Georgia State University from June 26-30. As a Wind Band Fellow, I worked with Dr. Robert Ambrose from Georgia State University and Dr. John Lynch from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point throughout the week through seven conducting rounds and daily large group sessions. What is a conducting symposium? A conducting symposium is a place to grow as a musician through the art of conducting. Though each one is different, my experiences with band-specific symposia have all included some large group sessions on movement and conducting technique, lectures on topics relating to conducting and rehearsing, individual podium time, and social events. Who is it for? Generally, anyone willing to put themselves out there and improve their musicianship. Some symposia have targeted tracks based on your level of experience and career goals, but others have people from all walks of life learning together for the duration of the program. I attended my first conducting workshop as a first- year teacher and have worked alongside all kinds of people: undergraduate music education students, graduate conducting students, fellow young teachers, experienced and well-respected teachers, and even someone who had retired from teaching but was still looking to improve themselves for the sake of their community band. There is usually an auditor option as well, if you are interested in learning more but aren't quite ready to conduct on your own. My ASCI Experience My week started on Sunday, June 25 with my flight from OMA to ATL. I spent Sunday evening exploring the area around my hotel, which included Centennial Olympic Park from the 1996 Olympics. Monday morning was the official start of ASCI. One unique thing about this symposium was that it included tracks for both band and choral conductors, so our first session was together. I had the pleasant surprise of meeting up with one of my SAI sisters, Emma, at this session! Emma and I were on the Executive Board for Iota Alpha together and we hadn't seen each other since COVID shut everything down during my senior year. It was great to see a familiar face and to make connections with some of the choir conductors. Even though we conduct different types of ensembles, we have a lot more in common than we sometimes think. Each day for the band conductors started with a session as a full group. We worked through stretching, breathing, preparations, releases, Laban movement principles, legato patterns, and more over the course of the five mornings we were together. Some key takeaways from the morning sessions include: • Dr. Ambrose's mantras: I am perfectly imperfect. I am a good enough musician. • Dr. Lynch's conducting principles: Float, less is more, energy, resistance, flow. • Dr. Lynch's conducting mantras: All gestures come from the core; the more joints in motion, the more fluid the motion. The second half of each morning was spent in full band conducting sessions. Each fellow had four opportunities to conduct the lab band, which was made up of the other fellows, auditors, and GSU students. I chose to conduct Chasing Sunlight by Cait Nishimura, movement 1 of Holst's Second Suite in F, movement 4 of Simple Gifts by Frank Ticheli, and John Mackey's Sheltering Sky. This part of the workshop is what the clinicians described as "a private lesson in front of all of your peers." Though it can be intimidating to stand in front of an ensemble of high- caliber musicians and be critiqued with all of them watching, I was more relaxed at this symposium than any of the previous ones I had attended. The extremely supportive environment coupled with the fact that I have done this several times now helped me have my best experience yet. One of the highlights for my week was conducting Sheltering Sky on the last day. I chose to start in the quietest part of the piece with the intention of working to keep my gestures an appropriate size for the intended dynamics and build up to the climax without getting too big too fast. We ended up working on none of that — sometimes what you think you need isn't what you actually need. Dr. Ambrose pushed me to hear every dissonance and release within the excerpt and connect with the players to pull out the sounds I wanted. It turned into one of the most meaningful musical experiences of

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