Central senior Gaby Schleining will pack weeks of preparation into six minutes today.

A flute player since sixth grade, Schleining will perform a solo and as part of a quartet in the annual Indiana State School Music Association (ISSMA) Solo and Ensemble Festival. She’ll be joined by hundreds of other Elkhart County students at Memorial High School.

For Schleining, it will be her seventh time at an ISSMA contest.

“Working with my quartet, it’s just seeking to do the best we can do and have a blast doing it,” she said. “It is kind of sentimental, though, since it’s my last time.”

Elkhart County student musicians have been perfecting their timing, tone and musicality in preparation for today’s and other upcoming ISSMA contests.

The local district contest for wind, percussion and string solos and ensembles is from 8:30 a.m. to around 3:30 p.m. today at Memorial High School. Local vocal and piano solo and ensemble district contests are next Saturday at Fairfield Jr./Sr. High School and Feb. 11 at Clay High School in South Bend. State contests will be later in February. Similar festivals for bands, choirs and orchestras will be in March.

The solo and ensemble events are all about focusing on the individual, even when in small groups.

Rusty Briel, executive director of ISSMA, said that the purpose of the events is for individual students to hear how they’re doing and to improve their own performances, which helps them also better contribute to larger performing groups such as orchestras, bands and choirs.

“It gives them the chance to be assessed on more of an individual level,” he said. “It’s a little more personalized.”

Performers are not judged against one another but are each rated according to music standards, including note accuracy, tone quality, dynamics and musicianship, Briel said. Performers also place themselves in different levels according to how advanced they are musically, so that beginners are not graded against the same rubric as longtime players.

Central band director Tim Carnall echoed Briel’s thoughts on the contest.

“It improves their musicianship by holding them individually accountable,” he said.

Larry Becker, a music assistant and accompanist at Fairfield, said that students gain responsibility throughout the process.

“They’re responsible to get together and practice; they’re responsible to get us if they need help,” in addition to being more responsible for performing their individual parts, he said.

Aaron Duncan, a Fairfield senior, is involved in three ensembles set to perform next Saturday. Along with his own performances, he said he’s excited to hear other performers.

“You always learn from other singers,” he said.

Briel, Carnall and Becker all spoke about the high quality of area school performances.

“It’s just a huge, huge, huge area for music,” Becker said, “and there’s good support.”

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