Southwestern Michigan College’s fourth annual Band Clinic Day Feb. 9 featured six area school bands and more than 300 musicians critiqued just in time for polishing March Southwestern Michigan Band and Orchestra Association (SWMBOA) festival programs.

Clinician Dr. Scott Boerma of Western Michigan University evaluated Sean Keck’s Cassopolis Senior High Concert Band, Jennifer Hollandsworth’s Watervliet High School Band, Matt Pagel’s Lakeshore High School Symphonic Band, Marc Hartman’s Buchanan High School Symphonic Band, Paul Stanton’s Schoolcraft High School Concert Band and Nicole Bell’s Covert High School Band.

For SMC Director of Bands Mark Hollandsworth’s musicians, it was an opportunity to road-test selections for “Among Us,” the winter concert at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23.

Debuted in 2021, “Among Us” features original wind band and jazz compositions and arrangements of living composers, capturing a few artists who compose with us, perform with us, collaborate with us and live among us in the early 21^st century.

The band concert will also feature the culminating work of guest high school participants in the 2024 SMC Flute Clinic Day on that Friday.

SMC’s Symphonic Band will perform Boerma’s “Poem,” as well as “The Beginning of All Things” by Brooke Pierson and “Halcyon Hearts” by Katahj Copley.

Cassopolis performed “New Horizons March” by William Owens, “Luna” by Yukiko Nishimura and “Ancient Dialogue” by Patrick Burns.

Watervliet chose “Amparito Roca” by Jaime Texador, arranged by Gary Fagan; “Sun Cycles” by Brian Balmages; and “Gadget” by Randall Standridge.

Lakeshore’s selections included “Prestissimo” by Karl King, arranged by James Swearingen; “O Magnum Mysterium” by Morten Lauridsen, arranged by Robert Reynolds; and Robert Sheldon’s “Der Lehrmeister.”

The afternoon led off with Buchanan’s “Blalock Canyon March” by Steve Hodges; “...Music Speaks” by Randall Standridge; and “Through the Storm” by JaRod Hall.

Schoolcraft selected “The Boom Boom Galop” by Randall Standridge; “A Life Worth Living” by Brian Balmages; and “Equilibrium” by Michael Oare.

Covert closed the day with Haley Woodrow’s “March of the Shadow,” Mark Williams’ “Primordium” and Christina Huss’s “Dark Star.”

Boerma focused on phrasing, dynamics and intonation in his critiques.

To one group which played with precision and rigid posture, he suggested, “Allow yourself to move with the flow of the music so there’s a sense of leading someplace. The emotion it conjures could be sad or nostalgic, like a longing. Put yourself in that mindset and lean toward those things. It might make it more meaningful for you to play and for the audience to hear.”

Clinic Day, introduced on Valentine’s Day in 2020 and canceled by COVID-19 in 2021, resumed in 2022 in the theatre of the Dale A. Lyons Building on the Dowagiac campus. It is co-sponsored with Quinlan and Fabish Music Co., Stevensville.

Each band receives a similar experience of an hour on stage, playing festival selections, with the remaining time devoted to tips from Boerma, WMU Director of Bands and Professor of Music. He conducts Western’s University Wind Symphony and Western Winds.

As a composer, Boerma’s concert band works have been performed by “The President’s Own” Marine Band, the U.S. Navy Band, the Dallas Wind Symphony, the University of North Texas Wind Symphony, the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, the University of Illinois Wind Symphony, the University of Michigan Symphony and Concert Bands, the Michigan State University Wind Symphony and Symphony Band, the Interlochen Arts Camp High School Bands and the Music For All Honor Band of America.