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CONCERT ENSEMBLES
Concert Bands
The Kennesaw Mountain High
School Band Program has continually set high standards in concert band
performance. Since their opening in the fall of 2000, KMHS Concert Bands
have consistently received Superior ratings at festival, and from top to
bottom have displayed technique, musicianship, and utmost class in all their
performances.
KMHS Concert Bands give at least four annual concerts:
A fall concert, a holiday concert, a pre-festival concert, and a spring
concert. During the fall semester, students not participating in marching
band perform in a concert-only class, where they play literature at the
grade 4 level. In the spring, students are placed by audition into one of
four bands: Wind Ensemble (Grade 6 level), Symphonic Band
(Grade 5-6 level), Concert Band I (Grade 4 level), or Concert Band
II (Grade 3 level). KMHS Bands continue to attract the top clinicians
and conductors in the country, including Dr. Gary Green, Dr. Andrea Strauss,
Dr. Scott Stewart, Dr. John Lynch, Dr. John Culvahouse, Dr. David Kish, Nola
Jones and many other well-respected music education professionals who come
specifically to Kennesaw Mountain to work with some of the highest-caliber
high-school students in the country.
Kennesaw Mountain consistently has one of the highest
representations of students who make district honor band, Georgia All-State
Band, and who participate in such extracurricular auditioned groups such as
the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony.
In addition, Kennesaw Mountain has had the honor of sending two students to
the BOA Honor Band of America, in which only the finest high school
musicians from around the country are chosen.
Kennesaw Mountain High School Concert Band students
have always made “a commitment to excellence and innovation,” and
they continue to reach new heights and gain national recognition as some of
the finest bands in America.
Chamber Ensembles
Students at Kennesaw Mountain can pursue other
avenues of musical enrichment by participating in a number of chamber
ensembles offered at the high school. Currently, interested students can
play in jazz band, percussion ensemble, woodwind choir,
brass choir, and assorted other small ensembles (sax quartets,
brass quintets, woodwind quintets), as well as playing in the pit orchestra
for the KMHS Drama Club’s annual musical. Students in jazz band, percussion
ensemble, woodwind choir and brass choir rehearse once a week after school,
and also perform in a chamber concert each spring.
In addition to performing at KMHS, many of these
chamber groups perform in the community. This past Christmas, the Brass and
Woodwind Choirs represented Kennesaw Mountain as they performed at the
annual “Shop with a Mustang” charity event for underprivileged children.
This spring, the jazz band will perform at the Kennesaw Big Shanty Festival,
the Sunbelt Jazz Festival, and the GMEA District Jazz Band Festival. KMHS
chamber ensembles routinely answer the call around the Kennesaw community to
perform at various events.
Playing in these smaller chamber groups offers students
wonderful opportunities for musical growth and development, and it also
provides students with an incredibly fun and relaxed performance atmosphere.
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