Mountain View High School music students are wrapping up the school year with strong performances both at home and on the road. Evanston hosted the Southwest District Music Festival April 21-23, and some students also recently performed at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.

MVHS guitar teacher Vonda Phillips, who has led the group for 26 years, said this year’s students are special.

“Mountain View has had a good track record over the years for receiving superior ratings,” Phillips told the Pioneer, “however, this year was unique, as all of the large groups and soloists received a superior score.”

All three classes — beginner, intermediate and advanced — received superior ratings performing a variety of music at the Evanston festival. The advanced guitar class also recently performed at Utah State University and did a workshop with Grammy Award winning jazz guitarist Corey Christiansen.

“Along with large group performances, seven students also performed solos at festival, each receiving a superior rating,” Phillips said.

Students are graded on performance techniques, including rhythms and interpretation of music, etc.

Students performing solos included Jaxon Bird, Sean Littlejohn, Lilly Jackson, Mitchell Riberio, Angelica Shassetz and Abby and Alex Goodman, along with Braxton Simmons, who received a perfect score on his piano solo.

Students performed a variety of classical music at this year’s festival, including “Finale” by Camille Saint-Saens, “Chorale,” by Johann Sebastian Bach, and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg.

All of the arrangements were written for a four-part guitar ensemble, Phillips said. 

Additional schools competing at the festival included Lyman, Evanston (EHS), Kemmerer, Cokeville, Pinedale, Big Piney, Jackson and Star Valley.

Phillips said she would like to thank EHS officials for putting on a great festival, including orchestra director Ramona Pace, choir director Heather Blackwell and band director Richard Ziedweid.

Phillips said the program has grown quite a bit over the last 26 years.

“When I first started, there were six students in the program,” she said. “Now there are close to 75 students, with three classes offered — beginning, intermediate and advanced. Mountain View High School is unique, in the sense that they will perform at music festivals, whereas other high schools with guitar classes typically do not.”

Phillips praised several of her standout students.

I have a top-notch bass guitar player, Bowen Bury, and a student who plays guitar and also made it into the Wyoming All-State Orchestra on the violin, Brayston Bentley,” she said. “I also have two seniors headed to college next year to pursue music. Isaac Estes will be attending Sheridan College … [to study] music technology and Abby Cantlin will be attending Western Wyoming Community College in the fall, with another offer to finish her degree … in music education … at Southern Utah University.”

She also thanked administrators.

“Behind every good school music program is administrators who support music in their schools. Thank you Mountain View High School principal Ben Carr and Superintendent Jeff Newton.”