Crossover Festivals

Teachers are welcome to bring their student bands to a festival experience that will celebrate their students’ achievements in the area of cover song and original song performance. Students will perform a 10-minute set of cover and original music and then have a 30-minute coaching session by a music teacher producer from the hosting institution. Students should plan on spending the day to hear other bands perform and experience the unique program of each host institution. There will be performances from university students, presentations from members of the music industry, and valuable Q&A sessions for how to make better music. All student performances will be professionally multitrack-recorded. At the end of each festival, two bands will be awarded the honor of having one of their original songs released on a special album following the Festivals. Here is a link to the 2024 Festival Album.

Site Locations

• Gainesville (Santa Fe College)—May 9
• Tallahassee (Florida State University)—May 17
• Tampa (University of South Florida)—May 22

General Guidelines:

1. All Florida student bands in grades K-12 are eligible to participate. Students must, however, be nominated by an FMEA member teacher.
2. Students can enter one of three divisions: elementary (K-5), middle school (6-8), or high school (9-12).
3. This is a group festival. Groups can consist of as few as two or more individuals.
4. Each student can only be involved in one submission.
5. The submission deadline is 5:00 pm EST on March 21, 2025.

Each Group Must Submit a Performance of:

1. A Cover Song. Cover songs are songs written and/or performed by an artist who is not the student(s) performing.
   
   
2. An Original Song. Original songs are songs written and/or performed by the songwriter(s) at the festival.

Submission Guidelines

• Submissions can include original compositions, mash-ups, partner songs, re-mixes, covers, etc. Live performance pieces must be no longer than 4 minutes in length.
• Submissions must include both a cover song and an original song. Performances can involve any single musical style or combination of musical styles. While live performance compositions can include any combination of instruments and vocalists, they must prominently feature at least one digital instrument (computers, electric guitars, phones, electronic toys, tablets, synthesizers, midi controllers, microphones, electronic drums, loopers, etc.).
• The inclusion of other performing arts, such as movement, dance, theater, poetry, and visual art, are all encouraged.

Submission Process

FMEA member teachers may nominate as many students and/or student groups as they wish. Each nomination must include the following:

1. A video recording of a live performance of the two full pieces.
• The video should be uploaded to a video-sharing site such as YouTube, Vimeo, TeacherTube, or the composer's or school's/teacher's website. Make sure it's set so that anyone with the link can view the video. For example, in YouTube, this would be "Unlisted" but not private, and in Google Drive the sharing settings should be "anyone with the link" can view. The online application will ask for the link/URL.
• If submitting an Audio recording, it should be an mp3 file. The application will ask you to upload it. 
2. The online application will ask for: composer name(s) and email(s), school name(s), year(s) in school, composition title, duration, listing of instrumentation and equipment used, an analysis of the piece's form, one or two paragraphs describing the compositional/creative process, a listing of student performers that includes name, email, school name, year in school, and type of participation in the composition for each student, and links to uploaded video/audio files.

The submission deadline is 5:00pm EST March 21, 2025. Only applications completed by this time will be considered. Students whose works are selected for performance will be notified by March 28 and will be expected to attend the event.

Payment

No up-front payment is required to apply, but entry fees for the groups selected to participate will be $20 per student, which must be paid to FMEA before the festival date. 

Crossover Music Festival Application