Illinois Music Educator Conference (IMEC) is an annual event held in Peoria, Illinois featuring hundreds of clinics and performances from across the state. This year, only four high school ensembles were selected to perform including East’s wind symphony.

Wind symphony will travel to Peoria on Jan. 29 to perform at the conference making it a major opportunity for the ensemble. The group has spent months preparing for the performance.

Band director Stevan Rexroat has been guiding students through the demanding preparation process for IMEC.

“I always say it is the most critical crowd they’ll ever play for, because the audience is just entirely like band directors, and so everyone’s just like sitting judgmentally, but it’s supportive at the same time,” Rexroat said.

Rexroat acknowledges how intimidating IMEC is since so few schools are selected and the audience consists of music educators. Despite this, he emphasized that the experience is valuable because there are only a few schools selected to perform at the event.

Vihaan Rawatt, a first-year member of wind symphony, has been preparing for IMEC and is quite excited about it, and about being able to perform in front of a spectacular audience of band directors.

“It’s exciting because this is a big event and it’s a really cool experience because it’s not like U of I and performing, but being able to perform in front of directors. It’s not something that just happens to anybody who goes to school, this is special” Rawatt said.

During rehearsals, Rexroat is very stern and clear in his intentions, just wanting to meet the full potential of the band.

Wind symphony has many afternoon and evening rehearsals, leaving students with anticipation of getting to perform what they’ve worked on for the past five months.

Kaz Cachero, a two-year member of wind symphony, has immense gratitude for the opportunity to perform.

“I feel astonished. It hasn’t really set in my mind that I’m actually performing at IMEC,” Cachero said.

The East Bands performed twice at IMEC in 2022 with wind symphony and jazz ensemble. East was also selected in 2021, but were unable to perform due to Covid.

Now after a four year hiatus from IMEC the East wind symphony are looking forward to showcasing their talent in Peoria on Jan. 29

Written by seniors Geovanni Jurado and Melynda Patton. Edited by staff writers for Oswego East’s online news magazine The Howl.