Band directors swing back to UNI for Tallcorn Jazz Festival
Band directors swing back to UNI for Tallcorn Jazz Festival
For some UNI-educated band directors, attending the Tallcorn Jazz Festival with their students is a full-circle moment, as many of them helped organize and execute the event back in their college days. For teachers like Claire Uselding, there’s another layer to the magic, as she first attended Tallcorn as a high school student. In fact, it was one of the reasons she chose to study at UNI.
Now, the teacher who just started in her role as 5-12 band director for Belmond-Klemme in January is set to bring her own students to campus and experience the jazz extravaganza in a whole new light.
“Unless you have a sibling or a relative or a friend in college, you're probably not seeing college performances much while you’re in high school,” said Uselding. “Those bands are so good, especially UNI’s jazz bands. It's so cool as high schoolers to see that.”
“That's a nice moment to bring students to a place I treasure so fondly and allow them to have a good musical experience there as well,” said Levi Temple, a first-year band director for Union High School who will also be bringing students to the festival. “I know it’ll be a good day.”
Uselding and Temple both came to UNI knowing their dreams were to be band teachers. Their own experiences taking band growing up confirmed that was the right path for them to take. Both of their moms also happen to be teachers, which got each of them interested in education from an early age.
Both band directors recall their first weeks on campus as members of Panther Marching Band. They had to arrive at UNI earlier than most students for band camp.
“From that point on, I had a circle of people who I was experiencing the same classes, same experiences with, and from there, I was able to just keep building with them,” said Temple. “It was a very welcoming experience, to say the least.”
“Before classes even start, you have this group of people who you know are going to marching band rehearsals and doing all those things with you,” said Uselding. “It’s so supportive right from the get go.”
That supportive environment continued once classes started and all throughout the four-year college experience at UNI.
“Everyone is willing to help each other and ask questions,” said Uselding. “The professors really want you to succeed. They go out of their way to help you. They'll check in with you.”
The support has continued even after graduating, as Uselding has reached out to two of her former music professors, Mike Conrad and Chris Merz, with questions. Conrad even visited her classroom to work with her band recently.
For Temple, the highlights of the UNI experience were travelling internationally, to South Africa with the jazz band and to Italy with the orchestra. The trip to South Africa was his first time overseas.
“Leaving the country for the first time and getting to experience other cultures would have been eye-opening even if I didn't have a trombone in my hand for half of it,” he said. “But just the ability to make music and connect with other people through music outside of the country showed me music really does unite us all.”
While, of course, his first year teaching has come with challenges, for Temple, the pros far outweigh the cons.
“It's been very fulfilling already,” he said. “It's been very nice to know this is exactly the right path for me. You never entirely know when you're first going into a job what it's going to end up feeling like, even when you get field experience and the student teaching. Until you do it by yourself, when you are in charge, you don't know. You can only hope for the best. And thankfully, I felt well prepared to start the year off strong.”
