SANDPOINT - Summer is the busy season for The Festival at Sandpoint, as it prepares for and then presents top-name musical acts in its popular concert series. At the end of every school year, the arts organization mounts another, rather elite, flurry of concerts attended by around 700 audience members over the course of a 3-day, whirlwind tour of Bonner and Boundary County schools.

On Thursday, a 13-member chamber orchestra played the final performance in that tour, known as The Festival at Sandpoint Fifth Grade Outreach Program. Now in its 12th year, the program started small with an ensemble of four musicians whose visits were limited to public schools in eastern Bonner County.

"And then we expanded it west to Priest River and from there to Boundary County," said Dyno Wahl, executive director for The Festival at Sandpoint. "Finally, we invited all the private school and home-schooled students, so now we're hitting pretty much every fifth-grader in both counties."

The intent, Wahl explained, is to catch elementary school students on the cusp of the opportunity to begin their own exploration of instrumental music.

"It's right before they go into sixth-grade band, so we put the outreach concerts at the end of the year to inspire them and create an excitement about music," she said.

It has worked. So much so, that the Festival had to step up in order to help provide lower-income families with rental assistance for band instruments. Over the years that this additional support has been offered, Lake Pend Oreille School District amassed what is now the largest level of elementary school band participation in Idaho - an achievement Wahl believes found its catalyst in her arts organization's education-related programs.

"There were a lot of kids who wanted to play after seeing the Fifth Grade Outreach Program, but their families couldn't afford it," the executive director said. "We responded with the Instrument Assistance Program which, along with the outreach, has really helped build our elementary school band program."

Kids also find inspiration in the fact that one of the outreach chamber orchestra members once sat where they do today, watching the concert as fifth-grader and going on to a professional music career.

Outreach orchestra flutist Jessica Hanna - who first experienced the program as a student at Sagle Elementary School - went on to become the 2001 recipient of the Festival's Coldwater Creek Music Scholarship and then earned her music degree at the University of Idaho, followed by a master's from Boise State.

"When kids hear someone say, 'I saw this concert in fifth grade, joined band in sixth grade and now, here I am,' it's a really good thing," Wahl said.

According to Verne Windham - a classical music program host on Spokane Public Radio and Spokane Symphony Orchestra alumni who currently conducts both the Spokane Youth Orchestra and the Festival Outreach Orchestra - general music teachers and classroom teachers alike have raised the bar when it comes to preparing fifth-graders for the touring school concerts.

"The kids seemed to be not only well-prepared this year, but also more attentive than in the past," the conductor said.

Windham was among the first ensemble members when the program got underway in 1999, joining a group that included Judy Heraper on piano, Rhonda Bradetich on flute and Jason Moody playing violin. Although the group was smaller than today's outreach orchestra, the composition of personnel was similar, Windham pointed out.

"We've always had the same vision - that it would be mixed with adult professionals, adult amateurs, college students and high school students," he said.

The actual orchestration varies from year-to-year, the conductor added, depending on The Festival at Sandpoint repertoire being premiered. This year, the focus primarily was on Russian composers, including Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" accompanied by a quick aside for Mozart's orchestral lampoon titled, "A Musical Joke."

In the past, Judy Heraper teamed with Windham to come up with themes, script dialogue, don costumes and pick up props as she went into character for the outreach concerts. With the pianist taking a much-deserved hiatus this year, retired band director, composer and bassoon player in the outreach orchestra, Rich Beber, stepped forward to provide his own comical turn on "Peter and the Wolf." With slight tweaks to the timeless story, Beber wrote in an international counterpart to the main character - a boy named Pedro - and gave the Russian classic some Latin spice in several sections.

"That whole idea of 'Peter and Pedro' was completely his thing," Windham said. "Rich took the Prokofiev as a starting point and created it from there. And it made a great finale for the outreach concerts."

On top of inspiring future musicians, the traveling concert series promotes the following season's classical fare by offering all students a coupon good for three tickets to either the finale concert with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra, or the family concert that features the Spokane Youth Symphony. Over the past few years, the number of students' families redeeming those coupons for tickets has been on a steady climb, according to Wahl.

One reason for the increased attendance, the executive director suspects, is that she now presents the opportunity in language kids understand.

"I tell them, 'Hey, don't lose this piece of paper - it's worth $100!'" she said. "I think putting a value on it that way has made a difference. The coupons are making it home to their parents, instead of staying crumpled up in the bottom of their backpacks."

Windham enjoys taking the chamber orchestra to schools and seeing how different groups of students respond to the music, but he finds it even more gratifying when those same fifth-graders return for the summer concert with their family members.

"The core purpose of this outreach program is to make that happen," he said. "We hope it will plant some seeds."

For more information on The Festival at Sandpoint concert season and its educational programs, visit: www.festivalatsandpoint.com