Top of the Nation High School Honor Band

Application Deadline – Friday, November 21, 2025

for all applications to be fully considered for membership in either the auditioned Symphonic Winds ensemble or the director-recommended Concert Winds ensemble.

• Audition Information
• Registration
  

  Recorded Audition Procedures and Information for Band Directors

  If submitting an audition for the Wind Symphony ensemble, please follow these guidelines:

  1. All auditions must be uploaded and submitted by November 21, 2025.
  2.  Recordings must be in one of the following formats:
     a. mp3
     b. mp4
     c. wav
     d. maximum file size is 10 MB (10,000KB)
  3. State clearly the student’s name, instrument and identify which portion of the audition material the student is performing (i.e. A-flat Major Scale, Excerpt #1, etc.) before each audition.
     a. EX: James Lind, Trumpet, A-Flat Major Scale
  4. Include the student’s name, instrument, and portion of audition material in the file name that you upload.
     a. EX: Trumpet_James_Lind_Major_Scale (preferably in this order)
  5. Record each student’s audition in a practice room, with a minimal amount of activity happening outside of the practice room to avoid “sound bleed”.
  6. Audition material should be recorded and uploaded in the following order:
     a. Major scale
     b. Harmonic minor scale
     c. Full range chromatic scale
     d. Excerpt 1
     e. Excerpt 2 (if a second excerpt is listed)
  7. Audition results will be emailed to directors by Tuesday,December 16, 2025. Music will be emailed to directors by Monday, February 2, 2025.

   

While there is NOT a fee for registration and submitting auditions, there is a $40 non-refundable fee for all students who are accepted to the festival.  Please check to make sure that all students are available during the dates of the Honor Band festival.  Payments must be received by Friday, February 13, 2026.  You may mail your payments to:

Adams State University
Music Department
c/o Dr. James Lind
208 Edgemont Blvd
Alamosa, CO 81101

Guest Conductor of the Symphonic Winds

Dr. Peter Lillpopp

Dr. Peter Lillpopp is the Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas.  At FHSU he directs the Wind Ensemble, teaches courses in band techniques and conducting, and oversees the universit’s comprehensive band program.  He teaches the Low Brass Studio and directs the FHSU Low Brass Choir. Peter is also the Director of the High Plains Music Camp, now in its 79^th year of providing a summer music experience for middle and high school students.  Peter has collaborated with numerous artists and composers including a 2019 premier by composer, Daniel Morel.

Peter has presented at several regional and national conferences in Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and Florida. He has presented at the College Band Directors National Association Southwestern Division Conference, and his research has been published in the Journal of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles. Prior to his 2017 appointment at FHSU, Peter taught at the University of South Dakota and was a public-school music teacher in Texas and Connecticut for seven years.

He is a graduate of the University of Southern California, University of North Texas, Hartt School, and the University of Colorado Boulder where he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Wind Conducting and Pedagogy.  He has studied conducting with Donald McKinney, Glen Adsit, and Edward Cumming, and has participated in conducting symposia at the University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of North Texas, and Northwestern University. He has studied tuba with with Chester Schmitz, Donald Little, and Tommy Johnson.

Guest Conductor of the Concert Winds

Mr.Kevin Beaber

Kevin Beaber is enjoying the joys of retirement from teaching while relishing the opportunities to continue to working with students and fellow teachers building and enhancing music programs with ideas and strategies learned in his 37 years of experience.  He is a graduate of Fairview High School in Boulder and Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

His career began in Haxtun, Colorado and ended in Ordway, Colorado with the Crowley County School District, where he spent the last 34 years.  Falling in love with students, parents and the sense of community that make up small and rural school districts, he spent his career looking at seemingly obvious obstacles connected with smaller student populations.  Scheduling and working with the community and school staff to offer students as many of the same or similar opportunities to overcome those obstacles has been his passion.  His duties while teaching in these rural communities always involved a combination of vocal and instrumental ensembles.  The challenges of which he worked diligently to be equally adept at presenting.  “I am a teacher of music to students, music speaks to some through their voice, others through an instrument and a few in both.  It was, is still, my job to help them find the joy, understanding and meaningfulness music can bring to them in whichever mode of music making they want to use.”

With the success and support of students, faculty, administration and community, Kevin was able to serve as a leader in his profession from local and regional organizations to state and national levels.  He believes that much of his growth as a person and teacher came from the times he was asked to lead professional associations, advocating and lobbying for music education at state and national levels, and adjudicating at state and regional music festivals.  He believes none of that would be possible without the support of the communities of Haxtun and Crowley County as well as his colleagues in Colorado.   Kevin says, “They had the strength to believe in me and my talents so that I could do so myself.”   While he states emphatically, “I never truly felt I worked a day in my life, my job was that enjoyable,” he enjoys a much quieter life with his significant other Joleen now…with the much-welcomed occasion to continue sharing his joy of music and music making with a new generation of student musicians.