It's SuperState - again! - for Northbrook middle school musicians

Wayne Gordon sees his musicians' success as a community effort.

“We live in a really special community in Northbrook, and the whole Northfield Township, in that we have a very pervasive art culture here,” said the Wood Oaks Junior High School band director.

“We have a school and a community really dedicated to making music and developing outstanding arts programs. That's kind of how we get all this done.”

And they are getting it done.

Not one, but two Northbrook junior high programs are sending their wind ensembles to the University of Illinois Friday for the Illinois SuperState Concert Band Festival at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Champaign.

The Wood Oaks Wind Ensemble will perform at 2 p.m. Friday, May 5. Through blind judging the group has been selected to perform at SuperState 13 times and is this year's junior high “Honor Band” based on assessments from its performance at the 2022 festival. Wood Oaks also was chosen as an Honor Band in 2016.

Also, 31 members of the Field Middle School Wind Ensemble will perform at 11:45 a.m. Friday. This is the 10th consecutive year Field has reached the juried festival.

It's the coda for Field Band Director Mike Miller, retiring this year as a full-time instructor after 24 years in West Northfield District 31, and 35 years overall in education, including a stint at Highland Park High School.

“The school district and the administration has always been incredibly supportive, and (SuperState is) regularly celebrated in the district,” Miller said. “It's a nice thing for the district, we are very small. It is certainly something that's been a regular enough occurrence that it's been supported, and the community is proud of the work that the group has done every year.”

From December through February, bands submit unedited audio recordings to a nationwide panel of evaluators. This year's six-person panel included band directors from Michigan State, George Mason and North Carolina-Greensboro.

“They don't hear me, waving the baton, they hear the students,” Miller said. “It's the students who earn that. That's an important distinction.”

Twenty-seven bands, eight from junior high schools and the rest in three sections of high school bands such as Maine South, Evanston and usual suspects Hersey, Libertyville and Marian Catholic, were selected for 2023 SuperState out of nearly 170 submissions, Miller said.

The four groups chosen as Honor Bands at the previous year's festival receive invitations without auditioning.

This year's on-site adjudicators, who will pick the 2024 SuperState Honor Bands, are a retired University of Colorado band director, the CEO of Crescendo Detroit, Texas Tech's band director, and the state director of music for Texas' University Interscholastic League.

The event, held Friday and Saturday, offers the experience of performing in an outstanding facility and the benefit of feedback from adjudicators.

As to a secret of success, Miller again credited his students.

“It's an understanding that young students can play with great control and expression. And when you combine that in a large ensemble they can sound quite a bit beyond the years they've lived,” he said. “By setting the expectations high you find ways to get there, and they end up seeing themselves in a new way. Each time their musicology increases.”

Gordon, at Wood Oaks since 2000, said the goal of playing at the Illinois SuperState Band Festival automatically raises the standards. Meeting those standards on an annual basis is difficult.

That's why, even with Wood Oaks being selected 13 times for SuperState, he said the achievement never gets old.

Being chosen as the Honor Band is a step above that.

“It's the difference between making it far in the football playoffs and winning the state title,” Gordon said. “To me it's not about the trophies. It's just about making memories with the students that will last for the rest of their lives.”