Musician, clinician and professor Jim Logan offered some tips to Permian High School woodwinds musicians Monday to help them prepare for their upcoming all region auditions.
The tryouts are in December.
Logan told about 12 students what the judges will be listening for and advised them to take their time to get set anytime they are playing something.
Several of the students had previously gone through the audition process, but they appreciated the help.
“I thought it was incredibly helpful and I am very excited to work with him later today,” 17-year-old junior clarinetist Grace Sanchez said. “I thought he offered incredible tips that not a lot of other clinicians do. …”
Aleesha Cleere, a 17-year-old senior clarinet player, thought the class was “pretty cool.”
“We hardly ever get clarinetists to help us, so it was a really good thing that he came here and I’m going to take advantage of that and go and work with him more,” Cleere said.
Logan was going to stay through Monday and possibly into Tuesday to help the musicians.
She said the lessons will make her feel more comfortable about the upcoming tryouts.
“Because of marching, we haven’t been able to practice much on region, so this helps a lot,” Cleere said.
Logan is from Iowa, but he lived in Odessa 30 years ago for three years. He is currently a clarinet professor at University of Texas at El Paso.
“I came to town as the principal clarinetist in this in the Midland-Odessa Symphony and it was a dual position. The principal clarinetist in that symphony taught lessons in the six junior highs and two high schools,” Logan recalled.
He taught 60-65 half-hour lessons a week in addition to playing in the orchestra and playing in a woodwind quintet … It was a great learning experience. That was really hard work, but I really learned a lot about clarinet and teaching on that,” Logan added.
He also has performed with the U.S. Navy Band, among many other orchestras and bands.
Logan has been playing the clarinet since fifth grade.
“I chose it. We had band night and it was just the instrument I was drawn to,” Logan said.
He added that he conducts clinics as much as he can.
“UTEP encourages community outreach and for three years I’ve been in El Paso and I’ve focused all of my time in El Paso because it’s a massive city. But since the first day I was in El Paso I’ve been determined to get back to Odessa” for a lot of reasons, Logan said.
One was that he wanted to say thank you to Odessa.
He said the experience was stressful, but it helped him as a teacher.
Lyndsay Eiben, an associate director of the PHS band, said having Logan on hand Monday was fantastic.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity for the kids to be able to be exposed to these wonderful teachers and also just to get a face in front of them that’s not just us all the time … and just to kind of get a different perspective. These teachers, they teach all over the state of Texas and they get to see some really wonderful bands and so they get to bring that perspective to the kids here in West Texas because our kids are often sort of removed from these other programs like Dallas, Austin and Houston. They don’t get to see these bands very often at all and so … these teachers get to bring a little piece of that to these kids and hopefully get them a little more competitive and up to that level. … Many of those larger city schools are incredible. They have lots of resources, things that we don’t necessarily have here in Midland-Odessa, so we’re certainly extremely grateful that they get to come and work with our kids today,” Eiben said.
Ultimately the process leads to statewide competition.
“… It’s a process that starts in July and it goes all the way until early January, so it’s about six months — about half the year,” Eiben said.
Eiben also is a PHS graduate and flutist who made it to the state level.
She earned her bachelor’s and master’s in flute performance from West Texas A&M University and her doctorate in flute performance from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.
Eiben said was gone for almost a decade for school, but wanted to come back to be closer to family.
Richard Lambrecht, also from UTEP, was helping with the horn players. They had arranged to go to PHS separately, but wound up on the same day.
