Interweaving Precision with Presence: Rehearsing Rather Than Reproducing in the High School Wind Band
Wind band rehearsals are highly effective at developing precision, coordination and disciplined ensemble performance. Yet these same practices raise a deeper artistic question: are young musicians being trained to reproduce predetermined outcomes, or to be fully present in the act of performing?
This presentation reframes presence as something rehearsed into being, or rehearsed out of it. When rehearsal is structured around conductor-led instruction and repetition, presence narrows to execution: a performance that is delivered rather than lived. When rehearsal instead interweaves shared listening with distributed decision-making, performance becomes something closer to an offering, an exchange of attention between performers, and eventually between performers and audience, rather than a result handed down.
Drawing on my own practice as a conductor and music educator, I examine how pedagogical choices in rehearsal quietly organise what performers are able to notice, offer and respond to once they are on stage. Rehearsal, in this sense, is already a form of presenting: it decides in advance how present performers can be.
By interweaving precision with presence, this presentation situates the high school band room as its own site of artistic inquiry, and asks what it means for young musicians to truly show up in performance.
Jovan Neo
Jovan Neo is a music educator, conductor, and arts leader based in Singapore with over two decades of experience in band directing and arts administration. He is Band Director at Tanjong Katong Secondary School and Temasek Junior College.
He is President of the Band Directors' Association (Singapore), where he champions initiatives connecting youth musicians with music-making opportunities across the region, and Immediate Past President of the Asia & Pacific Band Directors' Association. He also serves as Vice President of the Asian Marching Band Confederation and sits on the Executive Committee of the National Instructors and Coaches Association.
Jovan holds a Master of Music Leadership from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, NUS, where his capstone research examined how secondary school band programmes can better foster student agency, collaboration, and critical thinking within ensemble settings. He recently presented this research at the WBAS Symposium, and regularly guest conducts and adjudicates across the Asia-Pacific region.
Band Directors’ Association Singapore