Historical Festival Development

Discover How The Festival Has Evolved Over The Years

Click on a date to see what changes were made in that particular year.

2020

Division Winners
Awarding MAT Camp Scholarships to Division winners will be discontinued. Instead, cash prizes will be awarded: $100 First Place, $50 Second Place, $25 Third Place. The Adult Bracket will not be included in the Division Competition.

Registration Deadline
The registration deadline has been changed to a month ahead of the festival instead of two weeks. Registrations received after that date will have an additional $10 service fee as usual.

Participation Ribbons
Performers will continue to receive a participation certificate and written comments to remember their performance experience. Participation ribbons will be discontinued.

Honors Concert
The Honors Concert will start earlier, at 5:30, to help accommodate out-of-town groups. Corsages will be discontinued.

2019

Registration Form
The registration form has been simplified somewhat with the removal of most of the detailed festival information. It is now assumed that registrants have read browsed the website to understand important festival details before registering.

2018

Evaluation Form
Solo and Small Ensemble evaluation forms have been updated to include the performer's instrument in the top section.

2017

Memorization and Superior Ranking
Performers in the Band and Strings Divisions are no longer required to have their music memorized to be eligible for Superior Ranking. Performers in the Piano and Vocal Divisions are still required to perform their music memorized. These differences in Division standards correlate to the expectations for solo and recital performances in Wyoming schools, including at the high school and college levels. Band and Strings performers who perform their music memorized will receive bonus points added to their Total Score. SOLO and ENSEMBLE evaluation forms have been updated to reflect this change.

Honors Concert Rules
The Honors Concert Rules have been updated to give a clearer picture of what the Honors Concert is and how performers are selected. The updated version makes it clear that the adjudicators are looking at the “total performance package” when making recommendations.

School Info on Registration Form
The registration form will include questions about what school you go to and what music classes you are in. This will help with scheduling when large performance groups are involved.

2016

Songwriting/Composition Showcase
This component of the festival will be eliminated due to very little participation.

MAT Camp Scholarships
Scholarship winners will be required to register for a small number of predetermined MAT Camp classes which relate to the instrument they used in their award-winning performance. Full tuition recipients must take as many as 3 specified classes. Half-tuition recipients must take as many as 2 specified classes. Quarter-tuition recipients must take as many as 1 specified class. The required classes will be posted on the website before the festival. Winners who do not want to take the specified classes will not be allowed to use the scholarship. Scholarships are nontransferable.

Performance Brackets
Performance brackets will no longer be assigned based on age. They will be assigned based on grade in school. These are the new brackets: Adult, Grades 9-12, Grades 6-8, Grades 5 and under

Honors Concert Invitees
Honors Concert Invitees will be listed on the website and at the front desk around 4:30 pm on festival day. It will be the responsibility of all festival participants to check online or at the front desk at that time to see if their name is listed. All invitees must accept or decline the invitation by 4:50 pm. Those who fail to contact the front desk in person or by using the listed phone numbers or email address will likely be eliminated from the concert.

Honors Concert
In order to help ease the time crunch between the posting of Honors Concert Invitees and the start of the concert, the Honors Concert will begin at 6:30 pm. Participants will be required to show up in concert attire at 6:00 pm to receive instructions and take pictures.

2015

Registration Fees
For uniformity and simplification, the initial registration fee for all participants is now $10. Additional performance events are $5.00 each. Additional Songwriting/Composition Showcase events are FREE. There will also only be one ultimate deadline, two weeks before the festival, rather than multiple deadlines. After that deadline, if there is still room in the schedule, and time to accommodate you, there will be a $10 service charge.

Donations
With the initial registration fee reduced to $10 in order to make registrations simpler and to include many more students in the festival, donations are greatly appreciated. If you are able to donate $5.00 or more it will help to ensure that the YM Festival continues each year with outstanding clinicians and with greater student participation.

Memorization of Performance Pieces and Total Score
Memorization is still not required for solo and ensemble performances. However, performers now have the opportunity to earn up to five bonus points towards their Total Score by performing their pieces memorized. The better the memorization, the more bonus points will be earned, up to five. See the updated solo and ensemble evaluation forms linked below.

Memorization of Performance Pieces and Superior Ranking
Memorization of performance pieces is now a requirement to be Superior-ranked overall.

Performance Evaluation Forms
SOLO and ENSEMBLE evaluation forms have been updated to reflect the changes regarding memorization of pieces listed above.

Honors Concert Participants
Honors Concert Participants will be announced at the front desk and online by 4:30 p.m. Verbal or email acceptance of the invitation to perform is required of all invitees who wish to participate in the Honors Concert.

Festival Results
Superior-ranked participants will be included in the online festival results this year. All of the following will be posted within a week or two of the festival:

Competition – Age Bracket Placings and MAT Camp Scholarship Winners
Superior-ranked Participants
Honors Concert Participants

Sportsmanship Agreement
Signatures or other explicit acceptance of the Sportsmanship Agreement will not be required anymore. In order to simplify the process, there will be an implicit acceptance of the Agreement when you register.