Windfest Concert Band Festival 2025

A REGIONAL AFFILIATE OF THE MUSIC FOR ALL NATIONAL FESTIVAL

Windfest is Kentucky’s premier concert band festival in conjunction with Music for All. Windfest gives middle and high school bands the opportunity to perform for and receive feedback from clinicians from band programs of high merit around the country. This year’s festival will take place on March 8, 2025.

Each performing ensemble will receive:

• A performance opportunity in the beautiful Singletary Concert Hall
• Recorded evaluations and comments from our four clinicians
• A post-performance clinic with one of our three clinicians
• A high-quality performance recording
• A participation plaque

Each ensemble is allotted 30 minutes of performance time and a 30 minute clinic.

Registration is first-come-first-serve and open for the first 14 High School and Middle School bands to sign up. The deadline to register is February 14, 2025. The registration fee for high school ensembles is $350. The registration fee for middle school ensembles is $250.

Clinicians

Dr. Jim Daughters

Dr. Jim Daughters is the Director of Bands at Southeast Missouri State University and serves as the conductor and artistic director of the Cincinnati Wind Band, the city’s ‘official’ wind ensemble. At Southeast Missouri State University, Jim’s primary responsibilities include the direction and administration of the 200-member university band program, and he teaches courses in instrumental conducting and instrumental music education. Prior to his appointment at SEMO, he was the Associate Director of Bands and Music Education Coordinator at Arkansas Tech University. Jim has been an adjunct faculty member at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, conducting the Cincinnati Junior Youth Wind Ensemble, and he enjoyed a successful 16-year career as a band director in Kentucky. Daughters holds graduate degrees from the University of Kentucky where he was a student of Richard Clary, Cody Birdwell, and George Boulden.

Daughters has served as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator throughout the United States and Europe. He has twice presented clinic sessions at The Midwest Clinic, several state music conferences, and he was a member of the Conductor’s Lab in Aix en Provence, France, where he collaborated with members of the Berlin Philharmonic. Daughters has been a committee chair of the National Band Association Repertoire Committee, and he has commissioned over 30 new works for wind band, with two new pieces scheduled to premiere in June 2025 with the Cincinnati Wind Band in Carnegie Hall. His research interests include march performance practice, young band pedagogy, and student leadership.

Dr. Andy Collinsworth

R. Anderson “Andy” Collinsworth is the Director of Bands at Sonoma State University, where he leads the university Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Concert Band.

Professor Collinsworth earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Conducting at Arizona State University, where he studied with Gary W. Hill. He holds a Master of Music in Saxophone Performance and Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Nevada at Reno.

Now in his 33rd year of teaching, Professor Collinsworth brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the ensembles he leads and the courses he teaches in conducting pedagogy and music education. In addition to teaching duties, he serves as Chair of the Department of Music at SSU.

Professor Collinsworth maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor, adjudicator, and rehearsal clinician throughout the western states. He is conductor and artistic director for the Saint Helena Community Band, an ensemble established and sponsored by director Francis Ford Coppola. He is the founder and director of the Sonoma Summer Wind Band Conducting Symposium, an annual weeklong conducting seminar for music educators. He is the artistic director and coordinator of the Sonoma Invitational Wind Band and Orchestra Festival—a signature three-day event that brings over 2,500 high school and community college students to campus each year. He received the Outstanding Music Educator from CMEA Bay Section in 2022 and was previously recognized as the John Swain Outstanding University Music Educator Award for outstanding contributions to music education at the collegiate level by the California Music Educators Association in 2014. He is a nominee for membership in the American Bandmasters Association.
 

Dr. Erin Bodnar

Dr. Erin Bodnar is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands at the University of North Florida where she conducts the Wind Symphony and Concert Band, instructs courses in conducting and coordinates the UNF Conducting Symposium. Under Dr. Bodnar’s baton, the UNF Wind Symphony performed at the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles in Buñol, Spain in July 2019. The UNF NuMIX, co-directed by Dr. Bodnar and Dr. Venet, performed at the College Band Directors National Association Southern Division Conference in February, 2022. Prior to her appointment at UNF, Dr. Bodnar was Director of Bands at Graceland University for four years during which time the Symphonic Band performed at the Iowa Bandmasters Association Conference. During 2013-2014, Dr. Bodnar was the conductor of the Wind Symphony and Orchestra at Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand. Dr. Bodnar maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor and clinician, traveling to Argentina, Thailand, Indonesia, and throughout the United States and Canada. Dr. Bodnar has contributed to A Composer's Insight: Thoughts, Analysis and Commentary on Contemporary Masterpieces for Wind Band, Volume 5, the GIA Teaching Music Through Performance Series for Volume 7, and the revised Volume 1. She excelled at teaching both middle and high school band in Alberta, Canada for which she received the Keith Mann Young Band Director’s Award and the Edwin Parr First Year Teacher Award. Dr. Bodnar has presented at conferences in Canada, the United States, Scotland, Thailand and Austria. Her research interests include conducting pedagogy and motor cognition, and her articles have been published in the Journal of Music Teacher Education and Music Perception. An avid runner and group fitness instructor, Dr. Bodnar has completed 54 marathons, including 6 Boston marathons, ten 50 km races and one 100 km race.

Dr. Mike Fansler, Director of Bands

Mike Fansler is Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, where he leads its comprehensive band program. He serves as conductor of the University Wind Ensemble and Chamber Players and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting. He has served Western Illinois University since 2001.

Dr. Fansler has accepted performance invitations and delivered conducting seminars and workshops on five continents. He regularly conducts honor bands throughout the United States, including recent engagements with the Pennsylvania All-State Wind Ensemble, Region 22 Texas Music Educators Association Honor Band, Las Vegas Honor Band and All-Iowa Band. He has lectured on the music of Percy Grainger at the Midwest Clinic and, through a grant, visited the Grainger Museum in Melbourne, Australia, to further research his music and life.

Under his leadership, the Western Illinois Wind Ensemble maintains a demanding performance schedule presenting a range of repertoire from historically significant masterworks to exciting world premieres. In the past decade the group has engaged audiences at multiple Illinois Music Education Conferences, the College Band Directors National Association’s North Central Conference, twice at the prestigious Armour Stage in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall and internationally on a 10-day tour of Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.