Glenn Miller Scholarship

binx
Wed, 27 May 2009 10:29:23 +0000

My S did this. We wouldn’t do it again, unless we actually lived in Iowa. This is my memory (from 2004):

The competitors were mostly Iowans. Most of them, in my opinion, were of the high school All State caliber. The rules stated that it was for students “who intend to make music a central part of their future life.” Most of the competitors stated they were going to be music ed majors at local Iowa colleges. At the time S did it, there were only 2 scholarships: I think they were $1500 and $1000. [Or possibly two vocal and two instrumental?]

The judges were local music teachers, I believe. Three of them. I remember one was a flute player.

The two people who won were both from Iowa. The first place went to a pianist who wanted to be a lawyer, and flat out said he probably wasn’t going to continue with music. I didn’t hear everyone compete, because I was backstage as accompanist for my S, but I did hear the pianist. He played a lot of notes, and I could tell the crowd was impressed. I’ve heard a lot of good pianists, and to me, he was just one more, but not great.

The kid who got second place was a trumpet player who, frankly, just wasn’t that good (at least on that day). But he was a local boy, planning to attend a local school for music ed. As I said, I didn’t hear everyone, but I did hear him. I felt (objectively, of course) that my S was much better.

The people sitting around me leaned in to tell me that my S “got robbed.”

Then something weird happened. They called everyone out on stage to recgonize all the competitors one last time. And then someone in charge walked on stage and said that they had a special announcement. Someone had **just ** created a third place award of $500. They awarded it to my S.

We were grateful for the money, because it just about covered our hotel and travel expense. The hotels in the area were expensive and low quality, by the way. We had to make a run to WalMart in the morning because our hotel room didn’t even have a hairdryer.

I suppose this might sound like sour grapes. I loved spending the time with my S. But the whole thing was just a little weird.

I see on the website that there are now 6 awards, and the top awards are worth much more. So perhaps the caliber of the competition has gone up.