Mansfield Senior High band director Jeff Freytag, left, and assistant director Charles Bradley review the schedule for Thursday’s spring concert with clarinetists Brett Brown, Selena McGregor and Deondre Wilson.
The Mansfield Senior High and Mansfield Middle School bands will share the stage with the Ashland University Concert Band during their free spring concert at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 9, in the Senior High auditorium.
Alumni from four Richland County high schools are in the AU band.
The concert will feature selections by the middle school band and the Senior High concert and symphonic bands, directed by Jeff Freytag and assistant director Charles Bradley II.
Freytag said Ashland’s participation offers a unique opportunity for Senior High students.
“It will give them a chance to hear what music is like at the next level,” he said. “I think those who want to continue to play as they go on to college will say to themselves, ‘I can play in that band.’”
Bradley said the Senior High and middle school bands will present a varied program.
“There will be American and Scottish pieces and a mix of contemporary 20thcentury music. It will be a broad genre of music,” he said.
Maggie Rickard, a student teacher from Ashland University, will conduct a piece with the symphonic band. She has worked with students in grades five through 12 for four months.
The special performance by the Ashland University Concert Band, under the direction of Leonard Salvo, is part of the band’s 2013 concert tour. Other area stops on the tour include Colonel Crawford High School and Norwalk St. Paul Catholic High School.
Salvo, an associate professor of music and director of bands at Ashland, has a masters degree in music from the University of Michigan.
AU band members from Richland County include Janet Ankomah, Mansfield Senior; Matthew Dawson, Robin Wolf and Kathryn Metz, Lexington; Hannah Phillips, Plymouth, and Ben Bushong, Clear Fork.