Clarinet Competitions and Festivals in Tennessee
Since 2019, Charlotte Kies has hosted several clarinet competitions and festivals in Tennessee. Read more below to learn about past and upcoming events.
Past Clarinet Competitions and Festivals
Below are clarinet competitions and festivals that Charlotte Kies has hosted in recent years. If you are interested in attending future events, check back in the summer.
UTC Clarinet Competition and Festival 2020
Even in the face of the Covid-19 Pandemic, in 2020 Charlotte Kies hosted an exciting clarinet event with three master classes, a performance, and a competition. Because the event occurred during a pandemic, she designed the clinics to help students prepare for their video-recorded Tennessee All-State auditions.
Lee University Clarinet Fest 2019
In 2019, Dr. Kies hosted a day-long clarinet competition and festival at Lee University. The event included clinics, master classes, performances, and mock auditions. It was designed to help students prepare for the Tennessee All-State auditions.
Continuing Education
Although you can gain a lot from an event, you can learn even more from an outstanding degree program. Dr. Kies currently teaches at UT-Chattanooga and Lee University. If you are interested in pursuing a degree in clarinet, a career in music, or would like to attend one of her future events, visit her university websites linked below:
History of Clarinet Competitions and Festivals in Tennessee
Since 2019, Charlotte Kies has hosted several clarinet competitions and festivals in Tennessee. As a student, her schools provided her with numerous classes, clinics, and performances with countless notable artists. In 2017, she competed for the first time and won second prize in an international competition and a cash prize. After seeing the value in these events, she began to host her own so that students like herself could benefit from similar experiences.
Participating in competition is an excellent way to make progress on the clarinet. Even if you might not win, you can use the opportunity to set and achieve important goals. However, if you do win, you stand to gain notoriety, cash awards, and professional opportunities. Although numerous competitions exist for other instruments, there are fewer opportunities for clarinetists. Because of this, Charlotte Kies now hosts annual festivals and competitions in her home-state of Tennessee.
In addition to providing the chance to compete, festival events offer students a chance to learn from teachers they might otherwise not be able to meet. For example, in 2020 Dr. Kies hosted an event with guest artists Andrea Levine, Brian Corbin, and Matt Vance. These outstanding artists in their fields come from all corners of the US. Although you might not be able to fly to Hawaii, Florida, or Louisville, if those same artists come to Tennessee to give a clinic at a festival event, you have the opportunity to learn from all three, all at once!
Latest Posts
3 Simple Changes You Can Make to Up Your Audition Game
For better or worse, admission to college, graduate schools, and employment in most full- and part-time ensembles rely on your performance in auditions. Consequently, it is worth spending some of your time considering how you can improve your audition-taking skills.
Taking auditions is a unique skill that should be considered separate, in some ways, from the skills you require to play your instrument. While it’s true that you cannot audition well if you don’t play your instrument well, it is also true that you can play your instrument very well, but audition poorly. It is sort of akin to taking a standardized test in a high pressure, timed environment. Some students feel that their results on standardized tests do not accurately represent their intelligence or their education, while other students excel at these exams, and have no complaints.
Below are 3 suggestions for improving your ability to take and excel in audition situations.
Building an Ideal Practice Session
In order to become a well-rounded clarinetist, you need to make sure you practice a number of technical skills every day.
Below is a list of items you should practice every day, in addition to the repertoire you are assigned to play for lessons, ensembles, and auditions.
Solve Your Intonation Issues with This 1 Simple Exercise
A former teacher of mine used to say that an out of tune note, even played in the right place at the right time, is still a wrong note. Not only do you have to be able to recognize the difference between in- and out-of-tune, but you also have to be a skilled-enough technician on your instrument to be able to bend the pitch to your will.
The first question you should be asking yourself is, “what does it mean to be in tune,” and the second, “how do I play in tune?”
Articulation
As a young teacher, I had to make decisions about what to teach my students, and why. I decided that articulation was one significant area of the clarinet in which my students desperately needed more daily practice, but that the the exercises that I was encouraging them to practice simply did not exist in one single method book. I tired quickly of asking students to buy multiple books, switch frequently between them, and remembering in which pages from what books every exercise I was looking for resided. So, I wrote my own. The following pages I included in the section in my book on the subject of articulation.
The following exercises are meant to help you practice achieving light and clean articulation. First and foremost you must blow enough air through the instrument, otherwise all you will hear is a percussive sound of the tongue hitting the reed. This is why it is important to practice slurring notes that are meant to be separated. Your air must be actively moving forward through the instrument at all times. The sensation will be similar to that of making a crescendo.
Practice these exercises in at least one key every day. Choose a tempo at which you can articulate cleanly in sixteenth notes.
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