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By TYLER RALEY | Staff Writer

NORTH SHELBY – As a large group of students sit in the band room at Oak Mountain High School, sounds ring out as they play their instruments, following the direction that their band director, Kevin Ownby, gives them.

At the end of playing a song, the students listen intently to Ownby while he tells them what they are about to work on and what they need to improve.

For the next four months, students in the Oak Mountain High School Wind Ensemble will be working intently to perfect a group of pieces as it prepares to take the stage at the Alabama Music Educators Association Conference in January 2026 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex.

“It’s a big deal for our program,” said Dr. Travis Bender, associate director of bands at Oak Mountain High School. “We’ve kind of told the kids like people coming to this performance expect to see the highest level of musicianship, of discipline , of rehearsal etiquette—it’s all got to be demonstrated to the nth degree. Whatever you though was your previous personal best, we’re going to make them one level better this year.”

Since the school’s opening in 1999, this is the program’s sixth invitation to perform at the conference. It will mark the fifth time of an actual performance taking place, as there was a cancellation due to snow one year.

The AMEA’s conference is designed as a professional development for music educators across the state of Alabama over the course of three days, but also features the top ensembles at all levels in performances for educators to come watch.

Ensembles apply to perform at the conference with a recording of a concert which is submitted to a blind panel of judges. Those judges then listen to the recordings, without knowing what group they are listening to, and score them. The top groups receive invitations to perform at the conference for the upcoming year.

The wind ensemble is one of four groups from Shelby County to be invited to perform at the conference. Oak Mountain Intermediate School’s choir, Spain Park High School’s percussion ensemble and the Pelham High School Wind Ensemble will also make appearances in 2026, something Bender believes is a testament to the large amount of local support in the arts.

“In my opinion, a lot of people will associate program success with monetary support,” Bender said. “I think far more is community, the community backing the schools and expressing support and interest in the arts… One in every three kids that go to high school here is in choir or band or theater, and that’s a testament to the fact that I think this community values an arts education.”

Ownby, the director of the group and the director of bands at OMHS, is set to conduct the group through an eight-song program that is 46 minutes and 44 seconds in length. It will consist of the following programs.

• “Circus Bee March” by Henry Fillmore
• “Festive Overture” by Dmitri Shostakovich and transcribed by Donald Hunsberger
• “Wayfaring Stranger” by Christopher M. Nelson
• “Celebrations” by John Zdechlik
• “La Chancla” by Dennis Llinas
• “The River Seneca” by Rossano Galante
• “The Viktor’s Tale” by John Williams
• “Paprikash” by Julie Giroux

For his immediate coworker to have the honor of leading a group in the prestigious conference again, Bender is excited for Ownby and does not hesitate to highlight how well he works with students each day in rehearsal.

“Kevin is, he is one of the most selfless individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with and he is able to have kids reach potential that I don’t think they even see in themselves,” Bender said. “I think he is persistent, he shows his kids that he truly cares about them and if they’re not getting it, he doesn’t give up on them.”

As the kids prepare for the performance in January, they will be balancing numerous tasks like marching band season, competition season and preparing for the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade in November.

At the end of the day though, Bender hopes those in the group takes in the memories that this experience provides, no matter what they are.

“My hope for this performance is that some core memory is made,” Bender said. “If it’s not a memorable piece of music, it’s the feeling that they get when they release the last note at the end of the concert and they hear the crowd response, or maybe they will always remember how hard they had to work to achieve this program and how good it felt once they reached this potential they didn’t know they had. If we can do that with this AMEA performance, then it’s successful in my mind.”