They beat 10 D1 schools. They beat the odds. They broke history. A small private college received the honor of performing at a statewide celebration of music education for the first time in its collegiate history, and its ensemble is a majority non-music majors.
The Benedictine College Wind Ensemble is performing at the Kansas Music Education Association In-Service Workshop on February 23, 2024 with only approximately 15% music majors and 85% non-music majors, according to Benedictine College band and ensemble director, Thomas Davoren. The Wind Ensemble are joined by guest conductor, Dr. Melissa Sawyer and guest Euphonium Soloist Prof. Demondrae Thurman of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. The Wind Ensemble members are selected through an audition-process and rehearse twice a week.
Davoren said that performing at KMEA is “akin to a state championship” with over 6,000 participants. He said that all auditioning bands submit an anonymous tape recording that is judged blindly.
Davoren entered the program, he envisioned attempting to get in five years, not two.
“I remember opening my mailbox and seeing the letter with the official stamp from the Kansas Music Educators Association,” Davoren said. “My heart was in my mouth because you can never really tell whether it is a rejection or an acceptance. It was a congratulations,” he said.
For him, the success is not a witness to his work, but to the ensemble members.
“It is a testament to students and to the way they are chasing making meaningful music and really being excellent,” Davoren said.
He said that student will meet outside of rehearsal time in sections and hang out together.
Anna Brooks, nursing major and pianist, said that scheduling can conflict with the band and her major, but that music is a part of her person.
“I think that music is such a universal language that it can be brought into any aspect of life, whether it’s nursing, teaching, or engineering, it’s a way that everybody can communicate,” she said. Abigail Jones, music education major and principal clarinet, attended KMEA last year and was thrilled at the invitation.
“KMEA is like a culmination of those expectations we have set for ourselves,” she said.
For Jones, the mix of non-music majors and music majors meld well together.
“Every person matters like if our tuba is sick than it affects our sound.”
“It’s like a living organism, we’re all body parts and we all function off each other,” she said.
Benjamin Rodenbaugh, theology, evangelization and catechesis major and trumpeter said music and theology become more intertwined as he progresses in college.
“I have learned just as much about theology through my music as I have learned about music through my theology,” he said. He sees a Trinitarian aspect in the wind ensemble where different parts create a whole.
“The band works in a distinctness of parts that come together and couldn’t be anything it is without the parts of it,” he said.
The ensemble hopes to share their music with as many people as possible, starting on campus.
“We don’t create this music for a vacuum, this is really special and we love to share it with all those on campus,” Rodenbaugh said.
