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Silver Melted Into Sound is a music festival for concert band, vocal ensemble, and string orchestra designed to support the programming of diverse composers. This year's event will be held on May 3, 2024, on the campus of Wright State University.
Performing Ensembles will have 20 minutes on stage in Schuster Hall or in the Festival Theater to perform for feedback from a panel of adjudicators. This 20-minute block will include time to enter and exit the stage. Directors may decide how they wish to use their performance time from the following options:
After their performance, ensembles will receive a performance clinic on the repertoire of the underrepresented composer. Students will also meet with guest artists and composers for an interactive discussion about the importance of having many voices represented in music literature and the value of performing works by underrepresented composers.
The announcement of the 2024 resident composer is coming soon.
$50 Registration Fee per ensemble
Registration Deadline: April 22, 2024
In alignment with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Grant awarded to the School of Fine and Performing Arts in 2022, the music festival Silver Melted into Sound again calls for compositions designed to increase repertoire written by underrepresented composers, including people of color, women and other marginalized genders, or persons with a disability and/or draw attention to leading minority poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar.
The composition must be written for one of the following ensembles and at the performance level of a high school, Grade 3 ensemble:
The composition must be inspired by the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Paul Laurence Dunbar poems (PDF) have been pre-selected for use in this Composition Contest.
Congratulations to the winning compositions from the 2022 Silver Melted into Sound Composition Competition. All entries were adjudicated by Wright State faculty members, with finalists selected by composer Katahj Copley. All four pieces will receive programmed performances at Wright State during the 2022-2023 school year. In addition, the Silver Medallion winner has received a stipend.
Silver Melted Into Sound and the celebration of diverse artists have created partnerships across the Wright State University campus. Collaboration of ideas and the sharing of resources have come from faculty, students, and administration to make this event a reality.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, on June 27, 1872, Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of the first African-American literary figures to garner critical acclaim on a national scale. Although he lived just thirty-three years, Dunbar's contributions in a variety of genres left a legacy that endures today. His poetry has a lyricism and rhythmic pulses that feel like music. With his connections to Dayton and Wright State University, it seemed fitting to draw our inspiration and festival title from a line of Dunbar’s poetry.
Paul Laurence Dunbar poems (PDF)
Finding the right college means finding the right fit. See all that the College of Liberal Arts has to offer by visiting campus.