Our Frederick Douglass Orchestra went to the Singletary Center in UK to be evaluated on their performance through the KMEA assessment earlier this week.
If you are like me you are probably wondering what the KMEA assessment is.
“It’s a chance for the orchestra to be judged on their pieces and get feedback to help improve their orchestra,” informed Eva Bradley, a freshman in the orchestra, “where you get a score based on how well the orchestra performed. So instead of KHSAA for sports, it is KMEA for music.”
The KMEA Assessment is a good opportunity for the students to be in front of a bigger crowd and to get used to the pressure of getting judged on what they are playing. Fortunately, our orchestra seemed to have done extremely well.
“Most of the orchestra did very well with minimal mistakes,” reflected Eva Bradley, “an overall a successful performance.” The judges must have agreed. “All three ensembles received straight Distinguished Ratings at KMEA Assessment,” announced Sarah Milazzo-Payne, the director of Orchestras, “and many perfect scores were received.”
The judging process is a big part of what the assessment is about. It turns out that the judges record themselves talking about the performance while it is happening, and will send that recording to the orchestra to review. If they don’t do the recording then they will write results and critiques on a paper.
In the assessment, the orchestra played 3 songs for the judges.
“We performed 2 songs that we have prepared,” explained Bradley, “and worked on for a while and then sight read another song.” 2 judges were there for the rehearsed pieces and one judged the sight reading.
Congratulations to anyone in the orchestra for their amazing performance and results! These students put in a lot of work and time to be successful and should be recognized as such.