Franklin Music Students Get Chance to Shine at MICCA

This month’s beginning (March 31st-April 1st) marks Franklin Public Schools’ involvement in the annual MICCA (Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral Conductors Association) annual concert festival, something the young members of bands and orchestras of the Middle and High Schools prepare for every year. From Franklin, musicians from 6th through 12th grades participate.
“I’ve been here 20 years and as long as I can remember, it’s been part of the history of this town, to go to that festival,” says Diane Plouffe, Director of Music for K-12th graders in Franklin Public Schools and previously a Middle School Orchestra director.
Involved in the event are a middle school band from each of Franklin’s middle schools, an orchestra that represents all three middle schools, and a chorus that represents all three middle schools. On the high school level, there is a symphony orchestra, a reperatory orchestra, a concert band, a wind ensemble, a chorus and a select chorus who participate.
The event is not a competition, says Plouffe, but rather an evaluation of the students’ performance.
“It’s an evaluation where they have 3 adjuticators in the audience, highly respected across the state,” says Plouffe. These three come and listen and grade each performance according to a specific rubric. They record the performance, says Plouffe, making comments to students as they play, offering them a critique. “That way, we can take the comments back and have kids listen to how they can improve,” she says. Once the students are done with their performance, they are escorted to another room, where one of the three professionals who are evaluating them will spend about 20 minutes offering his or her feedback.
“It’s good to hear it from another director,” says Plouffe. “It’s a great experience for everyone involved.”
The event takes place throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but Franklin tends to attend the event in one of three places – Foxboro, where the instrumental teachers take their groups, Norwood High School, where choral groups from Franklin usually go, and King Philip Regional High School in Wrentham, where students from the Horace Mann Middle School go.
Once performances are scored, says Plouffe, students are assigned medals relating to their scores.
“You either earn a medal of merit, a bronze medal, a silver medal, or a gold medal,” says the music teacher. “The ensembles that earn a gold are invited to perform at a Gold Showcase concert either at Symphony Hall in Boston or Mechanics Hall in Worcester.” Last year, she says, two ensembles from Franklin each received a gold medal, with one performing in Boston and the other performing in Worcester.
“(Students) get really excited about the medal they earn, but I say, ‘It’s not about the medal, it’s about the experience of going,’” says Plouffe. “It’s going, getting feedback from another musician, and the thing I really enjoy about this festival is they get to hear other schools perform. To have them go out and see other kids doing what they do, sometimes seeing them do it better than we do, or sometimes seeing that, wow, we are pretty good.
To have them go out and see other kids doing what they do, and sometimes seeing them do it better than we do-or sometimes seeing that wow we are pretty good. This is areally a cool thing to be doing, not so much the going for the gold, but more the experience, setting goals and moving forward – the educational value.”