Festival Strings to Perform at 2009 Music Educators Conference

HERSHEY, PA- The nationally recognized Hershey Symphony Festival Strings has accepted an invitation to perform for the all-Eastern division of the Music Educators National Conference in March of 2009. Festival Strings is a middle school string orchestra for students in grades sixth through nine from the greater Hershey/Harrisburg areas. Their conductor is Dr. Sandra Dackow, also music director for the Hershey Symphony.

As an award winning arranger of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), Dackow has generated over seventy published works for orchestras and is an author of the Orchestra Expressions curriculum. Dackow performs as an international guest conductor, and has written articles that have appeared in major professional music journals. In addition to her responsibilities with the Hershey Symphony and Festival Strings, Dackow currently serves as President of the Conductors Guild, an international organization comprised of conductors from 31 countries. Members of Festival Strings are accepted, without audition, and represent over 30 schools from the central Pennsylvania region.

While their performance at the March conference will be Festival Strings' first national appearance for the 2009 season, they will use the opportunity to prepare for their invitation to the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association's (PMEA) annual conference taking place April 22-25, 2009 in Valley Forge, PA. Chosen from over 130 audition recordings, the opportunity to showcase their talents is not one the Festival Strings group is taking lightly.

The members of the Music Educators National Conference represent the disciplines of band, chorus, orchestra, jazz, and general classroom music. Every two years these music educators from up and down the East coast gather to gain new teaching strategies and be inspired by quality performances.

Festival Strings has played for the all-Eastern Conference once before, and has performed for MENC nationally in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2004, and Salt Lake City in 2006. They also have appeared at the prestigious Midwest Clinic in Chicago in December of 2006, and this past February performed for the American String Teachers Association national conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
For more information about The Hershey Symphony Orchestra and The Hershey Symphony Festival Strings, visit http://www.HersheySymphony.org

MEDIA INQUIRIES CONTACT:
Marsha Roscoe, Exec. Director
E-mail: media@hersheysymphony.org
(717) 533-8449 / 717-439-3026