The Dan Stover Memorial is a scholarship exclusively offered to musicians who are Seniors at Don Lugo; the scholarship consists of four levels (contests) that will take place between March 29th through mid-May of this year. For the first three levels of competition, there will be gift card awards presented to the winners. The winners of each Regional contest will be able to compete at the District Conference and those winners will be eligible for a Money Prize of $1000 – $5000, depending on their participation of the individual clubs.

Musicians will be able to compete in the four levels of Club, Group, Regional, and District Competition.  To be able to compete for the scholarship, the applicant must have a reasonable ability to play music and must plan on using the scholarship awarded for future educational purposes- the musician has a maximum time limit of 8 minutes and no minimum time limit to play their piece. The selection of music will be left to instrumentalist and are allowed to have as many accompaniments as needed, but the accompanist may not overshadow the the contestant; every student will be responsible for their own accompanist for all of the four competitions.

The judging criteria will include musical ability, musical sound, and stage presence. For musical ability, the judges will see if the contestant is familiar with the instrument being played, for musical sound, contestants will be judged on the desirability of their music being played and for stage presence as well as their sense of rapport with the audience. For additional information, contact Mike Faherty at [email protected].

The Dan Stover Memorial scholarship was established after the death of Dan Stover; the creation of the Music Scholarship Program is in his name and was coordinated, planned, and promoted by Alhambra’s first woman Rotarian, Christine Montana. She acknowledged the efforts and contributions that Dan Stover made as a person, musician, and Roterian. After this, the Dan Stover Memorial Music Scholarship program turned into a District program. Now, “a generation of talented, young musicians have participated and had the opportunity, in the name of Dan Stover, to compete against their peers and earn funds to further their musical education with the scholarship awards.”

The Assistant Drum Major, Angelica Guerrero, for Don Lugo expressed, “I think this is an amazing opportunity for young and talented musicians in high school, because they can earn money doing what they’re passionate about, and that’s playing music!”.