MS Solo and Ensemble

Middle School S & E Chair is Anna Werling

Fall 2025 MS S&E Report - 9/4/2025

FALL 2025 MS S&E REPORT

Preparations are underway for the Fall S&E Festival, which will be hosted by Spencer White, Jen Ewers, and Caleb Piersma at Hastings Middle School on Saturday, November 22. Online registration is open now! POSTMARK REGISTRATION DEADLINE IS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1. Please plan ahead when setting deadlines for your students and requesting checks, especially if you need to go through your boosters or your district's business office. The late fee for late postmarked registration is $25 PER EVENT. Late deadline is October 8 - no late registrations will be accepted after that date. PER STATE POLICY, AS ADOPTED BY D10: the late invoice and check MUST be postmarked by October 8, OR the late invoice must be postmarked by October 8 with a credit card payment made by 11:59 PM on October 8. If this late deadline is missed, YOUR EVENTS WILL NOT BE SCHEDULED - NO EXCEPTIONS.

All directors sending students will be given a work assignment, usually for a half day. You are required to fulfill your work assignment or find a qualified substitute. This must be another current (or retired) MSBOA member, or someone else approved by the MS S&E Chair. Student teachers do not qualify (although they should definitely attend and learn!). As in past years, we will be using Google forms for work assignment requests and to facilitate event scratches and schedule change requests. YOU MUST FILL OUT THE GOOGLE FORM FOR WORK ASSIGNMENTS (link below) OR YOUR REGISTRATION WILL BE CONSIDERED INCOMPLETE AND YOU WILL BE ASSIGNED TO WORK A FULL DAY! The form will automatically send you a copy of your responses, so this should eliminate any confusion over whether people submitted the form or not (you will have proof in case I accidentally try to assign you a full day when I shouldn’t). The link will also be included in emails as we get closer to the deadline.

When registering students, please take advantage of the ability to request an Early, Mid-day, or Late time for your students so as to be able to work around other things they may have going on that day. This will prevent you from needing to request multiple time changes for their events. While we will try to work out time changes to help your students, it is not guaranteed, and does create extra work for those of us running the festival. Try to keep time change requests to a minimum.

I will email the membership with updates throughout the registration process and as we get closer to the event. Please make sure you are on the D10 Listserv, as ALL S&E information and communication is emailed out this way!

FEE STRUCTURE for Events:

Solo: $15.00
Ensembles: $10.00 per person with a cap of $50 per ensemble
Again, the late fee is $25.00 per event

To Complete the Registration Process:

WHEN REGISTERING ENSEMBLES
- All one instrument (e.g. trio of flutes)? Pick Instrument
- Mix of Woodwind instruments (e.g. flute and oboe duet)? Pick Woodwind Ens
- Mix of Brass instruments (Trio of two trombones and tuba)? Pick Brass Ens
- Mix of Instruments (violin, flute, and oboe trio)? Pick Mixed Ens and then please note the primary instrument type [ww, brass, string] in accommodations.

ACCOMPANISTS
- If you are going to have an accompanist but do not know who it will be yet, please still enter an accompanist “code” in (e.g. Grandville Accomp 1). That will help me sort out any conflicts prior to releasing the schedule.

Register your events online through the MSBOA website and create your invoice
Get your invoice signed by your principal and all music directors involved
Complete the Google form for your work assignment - otherwise you will be assigned to work a FULL DAY!
Payment: you have two options
- Include ONE check payable to : MSBOA District 10 (with signature), OR
- Pay with a credit card. If you choose to pay by credit card, please make a note on your invoice that says “Paid CC - DATE”
Invoice: you have two options
- PREFERRED: If you are paying by check, please print your invoice, get it signed, and mail one copy with your check. (You may also mail your invoice if you paid by credit card.) If mailing via USPS, you must have it postmarked by October 1 to be considered on time. Send it to: Anna Werling, Grandville Middle School, 4900 Canal Ave. SW, Grandville MI 49418
- If you pay by credit card, you have the option to scan and email me your invoice. It must still include all signatures. PLEASE NAME THE FILE AS: "Event Invoice - School Name - Director Name" (so for example, mine would be "Fall S&E Invoice - Grandville MS - Werling"). Please also use that format for the subject line of your email. This is much appreciated as it will save me time and help me stay organized. Send it to awerling@gpsbulldogs.org. Credit card payment must be made and invoice must be emailed by 11:59 PM, October 1 to be considered on time.

Other things to watch out for with the registration process:

Please make sure your invoice actually generated! As of last year, it is possible to view your invoice, in order to show your business office so they'll pay for example, without actually generating the invoice in the system. Please make sure you have completed the steps to generate the invoice, otherwise the system locks me out of being able to schedule your kids. I will update this information as needed (hopefully the website interface for this has improved since last year).
Signatures: another fun tech issue from last year is that some invoices were printing without signature lines for the directors and administrators - usually meaning your invoice hasn’t actually been generated. I am asking that you sign and date the invoice. It will be understood that by signing and submitting the invoice, you have discussed everything with your administrators and are cleared and good to go.

Other reminders:

READ THE RULES! All rules for Solo & Ensemble can be found in your 25-26 MSBOA Yearbook, available in PDF on the MSBOA Website (log in, click MSBOA Yearbook in the column on the left side of your dashboard page, and the link to the Yearbook and several other documents will be on the next page). S&E Rules start on page 27 of the PDF. Certain rules only apply to High School or State S&E - you can ignore those for MS S&E.

THIS DOCUMENT is a great resource for making sure your students will be following all the rules and will get a rating.

Here’s the TL/DR version of the rules (but you are responsible for all rules as stated in the Yearbook!):

All events must have an original score for the judge or they will receive a “no rating”. Label originals with your school name - not just student name - so we can return if left at the site. Students must number their measures and should write their name, school, section number, and event time on the first page of their original copy.
If your student found their music on the internet, please have documentation of the source it came from ready and available for the room worker. You need either proof of purchase or proof that it was a legal free download. Events without this documentation will receive a “no rating”.
- NEW THIS YEAR: any such music that has been printed from the internet must be taken to headquarters with the appropriate documentation and approved by the site chair. We will have a simple form for this that will be emailed to you ahead of time.
- Please make sure students also have a printed copy (with measures numbered, etc.) for the judge. i.e. Do not plan to hand a phone to a judge and expect them to use that as their copy.
Solos must have a piano accompaniment played if one was written for the piece. “Smart” accompaniment, such as SmartMusic or the like, is allowed, but students must bring all necessary equipment, and the “Follow me” setting must be enabled. CD accompaniment or anything else that does not adjust to the student is not allowed. Failure to have live or “smart” accompaniment will result in a “no rating”.
All middle school events must be a minimum of 90 seconds long. Please time your kids beforehand. Events shorter than 90 seconds will receive a “no rating”.
If there are issues with an event, please do not give contact information for me or our hosts out to your band parents. I will simply refer them back to you to work things out.