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John Marshall High School Steel Drum Band To Represent West Virginia at International Conference in Chicago

Photo Provided Members of the John Marshall Steel Drum Band will travel to Chicago this week for an international conference. Pictured are, from left, front, Paige Wallace, Lakyn Phillips, Hannah Lynch, Kailey Filben, Sarah Fitzpatrick and Leah Reuschel; back, Dakota Wyatt, Creed Kidney, Brayden Snider, Madi Blake, Ben Games, Eli Nielson, Cameron McClure and Olivia Miller.

GLEN DALE — Members of the John Marshall High School Steel Drum Band will be the first to represent West Virginia at an international event this week.

The Midwest Clinic, International Band and Orchestra Conference in Chicago is to be held Tuesday through Friday in Chicago. The steel drum band, under Director Tracey Filben, is the first in to ever represent the Mountain State at the conference, which draws more than 18,000 people and more than 600 exhibitors.

Filben said the excitement she feels about it is unreal at times.

“It’s surreal. To say we’re so excited, this is the understatement of the year,” Filben said Friday. “Now it’s like, it’s Christmas. We’re ready to go. … We get to set up right outside the exhibit hall, and there are about 650 exhibitors.

“It’s massive — multiple ballrooms. Our state conference has maybe 30 or 40 exhibitors, this has 650 plus. I keep trying to explain to my kids how big a deal this is — they can’t picture how big this is.”

Filben said the journey to Chicago began last school year, when the steel band ensemble performed at the West Virginia Music Educators Association in March. The band then was chosen to represent the state on the national scene.

“On a whim, we said, ‘Let’s submit for Midwest.’ We sent in our recordings, and they selected us,” Filben said. “They said they really enjoyed our video, our group looked really fun and they gave us the opportunity to perform up to three times, an hour each.”

The students will be taking a charter bus to Chicago for the trip and will stay four days.

“This is supported through the (Marshall County) and the band parents,” Filben said. “The kids are not incurring any expense, other than maybe some food. … I don’t want them to go to McDonald’s when they’re in Chicago for the first time. I want them to try Pizano’s, or go to Geno’s, to Navy Pier. We’re going to Adler Planetarium.

“They’re performing Friday, and then they come home, so they can perform the B.E. Taylor concert the next day,” she said.

Junior Madi Blake, who plays lead pan, said she was highly excited for the opportunity to attend the conference.

“Of course we’re excited,” she said. “It’s nerve wracking, but extremely honoring. It’ll be good environment to share our talents. … I’d love to tell you exactly how it’s going to feel, but we’ve never performed on this scale. We can’t anticipate the adrenaline, not until we’re in that very moment will we understand the scale in which we’re performing.”

The Midwest Clinic, Filben said, is an aspiration for each band director, an end goal to make the trip to perform. To prepare for the trip, she advised her students to learn what their favorite musical influences look like, as they might end up rubbing shoulders with their composers.

“You’ll probably be walking through the hotel, riding the elevator, and they can get autographs and have conversations with these people,” she said. “They can ask them, ‘What were you thinking of when you wrote this piece?'”

Filben said she felt bad for the students caught up in circumstances — namely, well-performing seniors of the previous school year who would not be able to go, and incoming students new to the program this year.

“We were so sad to lose those seniors, because they worked to get us to this point,” she said. “They were really sad. For most of those kids, once they leave this program, they don’t have the opportunity to play steel drums anymore. Unless they go to West Liberty, or WVU or a college that has an ensemble, and most of those students aren’t going to have the time. They’re not music majors. It’s something they do here that’s unique to John Marshall. … This isn’t everywhere, and not everywhere has such a fantastic group.

“It puts so much pressure on the new members — in a normal year, they would have kind of eased into this, but there’s no easing into this year,” Filben said. “Come in before school. Stay after school. Take your pans home every weekend. Take your pans over the summer. Take every opportunity to practice.”

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