MOOSEHEART, IL - There was a general consensus among those commenting following this year’s Mooseheart Christmas Band Concert that the band had never sounded better.

The funny thing is that veteran Band Director Steve Schmidt echoed those same thoughts as well.

The concert took place Friday, Dec. 12, and featured six selections by the school’s band, which comprises high school and middle school students. The school’s chorus sang six selections. There were also solo performances by flutist Sidney Wharton and first-chair senior clarinetist Marco Namowicz.

And behind the band’s success lay a computer program that helped make it all possible. Schmidt began using SmartMusic software as a way of providing individual instruction he could not provide as the school's only instrumental instructor. With nine program-enabled terminals, the impact is incredible.

“There is only one of me,” Schmidt said. “I have nine computers with SmartMusic. This takes the one of me and means we have 10 instructors in the room.”

In playing complicated pieces such as a medley from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Phantom of the Opera,” the band had a SmartMusic-related benefit.

“One of the other things SmartMusic offers is a growing repertoire of band music,” Schmidt said. “We played six pieces today and three of those were on SmartMusic. The kids can put on the headphones and listen to a world-class professional band on a recording they can slow down and speed up without losing any musicality. And their part will show up on the screen and my kids can now practice along with these pieces. They do it daily and they love it.”

In roughly five years working with SmartMusic, every student in the band has a long history with the program. Only a few remember a time before the program existed to help.

It also helps that Mooseheart’s band students put in the practice time to get better. In addition to daily band instruction, the students are also able to opt out of general music classes and take extra practice time in the band room with SmartMusic. This doubles the amount of time Mooseheart’s band students have with their instrument in a given week.

“This past semester, I had 34 kids in my band and they all showed up every single day of the term,” Schmidt said.

One of the highlights was Namowicz’s performance of “Concertino” by Carl Maria Von Weber, a lengthy and difficult virtuoso piece which brought tears to eyes of some in the audience and induced a sustained standing ovation. Namowicz, 17, who came to Mooseheart at age six in 1997, is a two-time attendee at Interlochen, the world-renowned youth music camp in northern Michigan.  He plans a college course of musical study.

The nine-member chorus, under the direction of Kristin Shuman, performed a number of holiday selections, which ranged from serene to whimsical.