Malta High School Music heads to State

Students from Malta High School will be heading to Billings this Friday and Saturday to perform at the 2014 State Music Festival to be held at West and Senior High Schools after doing exceptionally well at the recent District Festival.

Students qualify for the State Music Festival by receiving the top rating at the District Festival. Malta Music teacher Larry Swingen said that students in the Malta High School Band and Choir attended the District Festival in Poplar the weekend before Easter and that many advanced to state after finishing top in their respected categories.

A total of 61 students from Malta will be attending this year State Music Festival in Billings. There will be a grand total of 160 total Montana students going to the festival meaning that Malta makes up nearly 40-percent of the entire production this weekend.

"At Districts we have our huge groups," he said, "the concert choir and concert band. But the big groups don't go on to state, just the ensembles and solos."

At the State Festival, musicians and singers are scored on a 1-through-5 rating, 1 being the highest, or superior score.

"We hope that they all get ones," said Swingen. "But that's a pretty lofty goal."

Swingen said that he is sure many of the students have placed well at state in the past, but added that the great part about music is not necessarily to reach perfection.

"That's the fun thing about music," he said," it never really reaches perfection. We always just continue rehearsing and tweaking and making it as beautiful and musical as we can make it."

Malta has had a solid history at the State Music Festival going back to the early beginning of Mustang and M-ette History, but Swingen said that even though the festival is, in itself, competitive, he focuses on the love of music more than just the competition.

"My goal is that they keep singing for the rest of their life," he said. "That's the nice thing about music. They can participate and continue developing their craft the rest of their life.

Members of the Malta High School Band and Choir heading to the State Music Festival in Billings are: Janise Amestoy, Quintan Boos, Shelby Bookie, Cole Brown, Andrew Bruere, Tyson Carney, Satchel Cole, Jeremy Costin, Nate Cousin, Cru Darrah, Emmy Doucette, Rose Doucette, Carter Epperson, Ronni Erickson, Shay Garfield, Palmer Giblette, Even Grabofsky, Eva Harms, Caleb Green, Alyssa Hofland, Collin Holman, DeeDee Johannesen, Daphne Johnson, Mary Kalal, Kari Koss, Kelsey Kuehn, Josie LaFond, Gerome Lamb, Markelle Lett, Tessa Lulloff, Marley Manoukian, Catherine McMahon, Edwin Medina, Thalia Medina, Madison Morris, Riley Mortenson, Amanda Mummey, Hailey Nicholson, Grant O'Brien, Hailey Olsen, Micaela Olsen, Tyler Ost, Brieanna Plummer, Parker Prellwitz, Devon Raybon, Darby Schye, Taryn Shores, Blake Sjostrom, Rebecca Smith, Terence Snell, Chris Stiers, Sadie Stiles, Sophia Stiles, Nathan Veit, Reid Veit, John Waters, Madison Waters, Trevor Waters, Kalen Wiebe, Jessica Wiese and Logan Witmer.