Jan. 26 and 27 was set aside for the Waynesburg music department to hold their 14th annual Symposium, an event meant to benefit both music educators and music students. 

“Every year at the beginning of the Spring semester the Music Program hosts a Conducting Symposium,” said Waynesburg University music program director Eric Brewer. “This is an event for music educators to earn Act 48 Continuing Education credit by workshopping music rehearsal techniques that help young musicians improve.” 

Brewer provided some more insight into what Waynesburg’s Symphonic band does and one of the main names teaching at the symposium.

“The Waynesburg University Symphonic Band with area musicians plays music from the wind band literature,” Brewer said. “This year the repertoire for the symposium was the Chaconne from Gustav Holst’s Suite in E-flat, God of Our Fathers by Claude T. Smith, and Nettleton by Johnnie Vinson.  Conductors participating in the symposium then have the chance to work with the band while receiving coaching and advice from this year’s clinician, Mr. Len Lavelle.”

Len Lavelle is currently the Director of Bands and Music Department Curriculum Leader at North Hills High School in Pittsburgh, PA  and is a decorated music conductor.

“Since 2011, Mr. Lavelle’s bands have been featured 5 times at the PMEA All-State Convention, 5 times at the NAfME All-East Convention, and at the National Concert Band Festival, all in different years,” Brewer said. “In his first 5 years at North Hills, enrollment in the marching band and orchestra programs nearly doubled, reaching their largest numbers in school history while overall school enrollment was at a historical low. His bands have been recognized by the National Band Association as a Blue Ribbon Program of Excellence and received the 2021 American Prize.”