The UAB Honor Bands for students have become regarded as the best honor bands in the region. Students must receive a recommendation from their school band director to participate. This weekend festival is comprised four middle school honor bands that rehearse on a Friday and Saturday and perform a concert in the Alys Stephens Center on Saturday. The honor band festival takes place January 8-9, 2027.
UAB Middle School Honor Band 2027
Event Dates: January 8-9, 2027
Deadline for Nominations: October 13, 2026
The 2027 UAB Middle School Honor Band will consist of four select bands. Auditions for the band and chair placement will begin Friday, January 8, at 8:00 a.m. All bands will rehearse Friday through Saturday (January 8-9). The concert will be held Saturday, January 9 in the Jemison Concert Hall of the UAB Alys Robinson Stephens Performing Arts Center.
-
Eligibility
Sixth, seventh and eighth grade students will be eligible. Every effort will be made to include representative numbers from each grade in the selection process. Over 300 invitations will be extended to students for participation in the UAB Middle School Honor Band Weekend.
-
Division of Ensembles
A pre-determined instrumentation for each ensemble will be used (see information on page below).
-
Selection Process
Priority for selection will be made as follows:
- Band director's ranked order of recommendation
- 2026 all-state students
- 8th-grade students with past-experience at UAB Band events
- ALL students with experience at UAB band events
- ALL students with positive band director recommendations
Given these selection criteria, every attempt will be made to take all eighth graders that apply to the UAB Middle School Honor Band Weekend. Heavy emphasis will be placed upon each director’s ranking scale in making our preliminary selections – please give this a careful thought. Obviously, any additional pertinent information will assist in the decision-making process. In order to have fair representation from all schools, we ask that you try to keep your number of nominees near 10% of your program’s total enrollment.
2027 UAB Honor Band Nominations
Please submit a nomination below to nominate your students for the Middle School Honor Band Festival.
Submit a NominationImportant Information
- Upon notification of selection, there is a $85.00 non-refundable participation fee.
- All students will receive a UAB Honor Band Medal as well as a UAB Honor Band T-shirt.
- UAB Honor Band CDs, DVDs, and photos will be available for purchase at the festival.
- Audition material will be:
- five major scales and arpeggios of student’s choosing (minimum one octave, extra credit is given for two or three octaves) at a tempo of quarter note = 80 in eighth notes; preferred articulation is slurred ascending, and tongued descending
- the Technical exercise from the Alabama All-State requirements for 2027. Access a list of the exercises.
- Sight-reading
Pleaswe note: percussionists may audition on either snare, timpani, or keyboards, but more credit will be given to students who audition on two or more percussion instruments: The overall score will be a TOTAL of all three areas together; students who demonstrate skills in all areas will receive more credit than students who only prepare one (or two) areas.
- Auditions will be Friday, January 8, 8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
- The first rehearsal will be held from 1:30 – 4:30 p.m.
- Directors, please contact Dr. Sean Murray, Dr. Gene Fambrough, Dr. Caleb Owenby or Dr. Cara Morantz if you can help with student auditions on either weekend.
Conductors
TBA
Honor Band Tentative Instrumentation
- 10 Flute
- 4 Oboe
- 12 Bb Clarinet
- 4 Bb Bass Clarinet
- 8 Eb Alto Saxophone
- 4 Tenor Saxophone
- 2 Baritone Saxophone
- 2-3 Bassoon
- 12 Trumpet
- 8 Horn
- 8 Trombone
- 4-6 Euphonium
- 4-8 Tuba
- 6-8 Percussion
Total: 94