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Maryville College prepares to host area ensembles at Blount County Band Festival

Feb. 12, 2025

The Clayton Center for the Arts is ready to let high school bands claim the spotlight at the upcoming Blount County Band Festival.

Formerly known as the Foothills Band Festival, the Blount County Band Festival will offer an impressive display from five local high schools on Tuesday, Feb. 18, allowing students to hear each other play in a lower-pressure environment, according to Dr. Eric Simpson, associate professor of music and director of bands at Maryville College.

A few changes have been made to this year’s festival, Simpson said, the biggest being the transition from high schools in a variety of counties around the state to only high schools from Blount County. The five bands that will attend include: Maryville High School, Alcoa High School, Heritage High School, William Blount High School and Eagleton College and Career Academy. 

“It includes every Blount County high school band, and that’s the first time it has ever lined up that way — where everyone could participate,” said Simpson. “I think that provides an opportunity for more advocacy on instrumental music education in our area.”

A typical band festival features a panel of judges that evaluates bands based on performance as well as sight reading; however, at the Blount County Band Festival, there will be a primary focus on performance with no sight reading, according to Maryville High School’s band director, Jonathan Leichman.

This is an exciting event for high school band directors, Leichman added, as it gives their students the opportunity to interact with area peers who share the same musical interests as them. 

“In addition to each ensemble gaining a decent audio recording of its performance along with audio recordings with commentary from the panel of judges, perhaps the most special part will be the uniting of forces both musically and socially,” Leichman said.

This festival is an integral event for the music community, as wide-scale interaction is becoming less common, Simpson added.

“I’m excited to hear the students play, most of all,” Simpson said. “And I am excited to see them socialize at the reception. There are plenty of entertainment options that try to isolate today’s students, so it is wonderful to see them choose to participate in an activity that is very intentionally communal.”

The event will take place at 6 p.m. with performances every 30 minutes until 8 p.m. in the Ronald and Lynda Nutt Theatre followed by a reception in the Clayton Center’s William Baxter Lee III Grand Foyer. This event is free and open to the public. 

Written by Lilli Bryan ’25

Maryville College is a nationally-ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders, to study everything, so that they are prepared for anything — to address any problem, engage with any audience and launch successful careers right away. Located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, Maryville College offers nearly 1,200  students from around the world both the beauty of a rural setting and the advantages of an urban center, as well as more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last. Today, our 10,000 alumni are living life strong of mind and brave of heart and are prepared, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”