Katie Krell
reporter2@greenepublishing.com
Madison Creative Arts Academy (MCAA) band students are all set to start a new year of music and learning. From Monday, July 26, through Friday, July 30, MCAA held a summer band camp to get students ready for the new school year. The camp was led by MCAA's new band director, Dillard's Polikarpov, with the assistance of MCAA alumni Emma Thompson and Lance Thigpen, as well as Misti Archambault, Willa Branham, Mark Branham and former band director, Jay Hicks. The camp was open to any student in grades six through eight from MCAA, regardless if they had taken band before or even picked up an instrument.
Each day of band camp started with the group being split into two bands, sixth graders in Concert Band and seventh and eighth graders in Symphonic Band. For the first few days, Polikarpov focused on introducing the sixth graders to their instruments by teaching them the basics of instrument care, getting a note out and music theory, while the Symphonic Band focused on returning to their instruments after summer break with warm-ups and simple pieces. As the week progressed, so did the students, as they were introduced to more complex pieces each day.
The group then joined back together to work on learning and reviewing basic music theory such as notation and symbols. Later on in the week, they put their new knowledge to use in the form of music theory jeopardy and body percussion games. Games became more intricate throughout the week to slowly challenge the students.
After a 10 minute break, students regrouped into sectionals based off of instrument type. Each group focused on lessons specific to their instrument. Because of the range of knowledge within the group, leaders would introduce various challenges for more experienced players. For example, Willa Branham, leader of the clarinets, suggested that her eighth grade student play everything the same as her sixth grade student, only an octave higher. Small changes such as these pushed students slightly out of their comfort zone, enough to help them grow.
The band split back into Concert and Symphonic groups to work on pieces that could be used in the upcoming school year. Polikarpov introduced everything from marching tunes, Veteran's Day music and Christmas songs, even including a piece near to his heart, called “Salvation is Created.” He explained that this song was an important song in his community growing up, played at any event, big or small.
For the final day, camp schedule was slightly different. The two bands were combined to play “Party Rock Anthem” and “Another One Bites the Dust.” Students then relaxed the rest of the day, with food provided by Ace Hardware and Mario Kart tournaments. Overall, MCAA's band camp proved to be a successful introduction back into the 2021-22 school year.