MARSHALL — Middle and high school student string players are invited to attend the second Minnesota Southwest String Fest on Saturday at Southwest Minnesota State University for a day-long festival of learning and playing with other musicians.

“It’s going to be an exciting day of music making … They can expect to meet other string players their age if you’re a student, which is I think that’s pretty cool. They get to meet other kids their age from around the state,” Amy Schendel of the Saint Paul Conservatory of Music (SPCM) said. “I think the best part of it is just the community part … It’s going to be pretty exciting to have well over 100 musicians on stage all playing together.”

The festival is done in partnership with the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra, SMSU and the St. Joseph’s School of Music – St. Paul Conservatory of Music.

Participating students will spend the day attending a masterclass, playing their string instruments with students from around the state and region, and come together to perform a free evening concert open to the public with the pieces they’ve been working on during the day.

“It’s a festival for middle and high school string players [ages 13 to 18], and it’s primarily attracting students from the southwestern part of the state, but it’s open to any middle or high school string student in the state of Minnesota,” Schendel said. “They rehearse, and they do sectionals, and there’s a guest artist group performance during the day.”

The students will split up between two groups for the day, but come back together for the concert.

“There’s two different ensembles. There’s a beginner and an advanced [orchestra], depending on the level of the students,” Schendel said. “What they do throughout the day is they have separate rehearsals and sectionals, but there are two pieces that include everybody.”

The students will get the opportunity to play and learn directly from professionals coming to the festival from the St. Joseph’s School of Music – St. Paul Conservatory of Music.

“We have faculty through our organization … That are there playing alongside the students, as well as the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra musicians,” Schendel said. “It’s unique in the way that the students get to play side by side with these players.”

This is the second year of String Fest, with registration already doubling in size after a successful debut last year.

Schendel said there were about 50 participants last year, and already has slightly more than 100 registered for this year’s festival.

“Right now for participants, we have kids coming from Worthington …. Willmar, Dawson-Boyd,” Schendel said. “We have students coming from as far as St. Cloud, Fergus Falls, and quite a few coming from the Twin Cities, too.”

There’s several Marshall string players registered as well.

The idea to create a day-long event dedicated to collaborating student and professional string musicians initially came from a visit to the area, which sparked inspiration.

“The director of the St. Joseph’s School of Music – St. Paul Conservatory of Music and myself were a part of a larger grant program at the time … We had visited some schools in the southwestern part of the state, and we were just asking questions about, ‘What are some things that you think would be needed musically in this part of the state?'” Schendel said. “One thing that kept coming up was having a string festival.”

Students will bring their own string instruments, and lunch and dinner will be provided.

SMSU Professor of Music and faculty in the SPCM Daniel Rieppel will conduct the upper festival orchestra, while SPCM faculty member Matt Liston will work with the lower festival orchestra.

The day will begin with a 9 a.m. arrival at SMSU’s Fine Arts lobby, and students will go right into a combined warmup. The day will continue on with introductions, rehearsals and a guest clinic leading up to the 7 p.m. show time.

The festival concert will take place in SMSU’s Fine Arts Theater.

Those interested can register at https://thespcm.org/stringfest.