The Association for Music in International Schools, best known as AMIS, is an organization that brings together students of schools worldwide who excel in musical achievements for days of music practice and then conclude with a concert.
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Founders of AMIS named it so in purpose because of the French word amis, which means “friendship” because it’s one of the hopes of AMIS that friendship is gained during its festivals.
“The Association is an international, non-profit, non-sectarian, politically neutral organization dedicated to the promotion of excellence at all levels of music education. Its objectives are to advance the education of school pupils and teachers throughout the world by developing their understanding, knowledge and appreciation of music; to advance the education of young people and their teachers in global issues and cultural diversity through the performance and study of music; to promote high standards of musical performance in school pupils of all ages and abilities throughout the world; to promote furtherance of educationally valuable music repertoire” [1]
Once a year, there’s a festival for each of the different categories. Each festival is "hosted" by an AMIS Membership, rotating between them yearly. To qualify for band, strings, and all High School auditions, students must audition by recordings, which are judged by a blind panel of music educators. Middle School Choir auditions are conducted by each participating school's teacher. The successful students travel to the host school and participate in the practice days and the final concert. The format is usually: travel Wednesday, rehearse Thursday-Saturday, concert Saturday evening, travel home Sunday.
AMIS' member schools mainly lie in Europe and Asia, with some participants in Africa. Originally founded in London, AMIS slowly grew across Western Europe and now has many festivals reserved only for Asian schools. Festivals are conducted in English, though due to the participants coming from within international school populations, most students (and many teachers) speak multiple languages.
AMIS selects a different conductor for each festival. Often, conductors are teachers in international schools who are well respected and recommended by their peers. In 2008, some of the conductors were (AMIS Honor Choir) conductor Dr. André Thomas, (AMIS Honor Band) Dr. Anthony Maiello, and (AMIS AMSHB / Asian Middle School Honor Band) Prof. Jerry Luckhardt of the University of Minnesota.
The repertoire style depends on the AMIS festival and the songs that the conductor wants to play. Many times, AMIS has commissioned works by authors, making the band/choir present world-premiere songs. Such authors include Philip Sparke, David Brunner, Dr. Richard Prior, Christopher Marshall, and more.
AMIS presents eleven different yearly festivals focused on different music, instrumentation, and musicians. These are: