Titans, Monuments, & Legends!

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This robust post contains a great deal of important information about the new season, including:

  • Repertoire for the new season, including anchor works and guest/featured artists
  • Special announcements — including our move to fully-digital library distribution. Plan now to download/print your parts to prepare for the first rehearsal on on September 11.
  • Our spring collaboration with . . . (drum roll, please) . . .
  • The reboot of the Wind Conducting Symposium, co-sponsored with Music Educators of Bergen County

Announcing the 36th season, Legends, Monuments, & Titans

You can see the full list of rep for 2023-2024 here. (Be sure to read the important library announcement below!) These amazing compositions will anchor our three TMH concerts:

  • Fall – Symphony No. 3, “Slavyanskaya” – Boris Kozhevnikov, arranged by John R. Bourgeois
  • Winter – Symphonic Dances from West Side Story – Leonard Bernstein, arranged by Paul Lavender
  • Spring – Symphony in Bb, by Paul Hindemith

And I’m thrilled to announce these amazing guest and featured artists for this season:

  • Fall – Dr. Brian K. Doyle, Crane School of Music, guest conductor; Pedro R. Díaz, English horn, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, guest soloist; Andrew Hill, apprentice conductor
  • Winter – Michelle Rofrano, guest conductor; John Anthony Lopez, tenor, guest soloist; Aaron Staluppi, apprentice conductor
  • Spring – Dr. Tim Robblee, Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, guest conductor; SSG Christopher Leslie, euphonium, West Point Band, guest soloist

Because of the huge success of the Invitational saxophone ensemble at the 2022 Fall Concert, we are planning to repeat the idea with an invitational Double Reed Ensemble (oboes, oboe d’amores, English horns, bassoons, and contrabassoons) to honor our guest English horn soloist, Pedro Díaz, on November 5. I have a list of 70 double reed players ready to go, and invitations will go out next week. In addition, A.Laubin LLC, American manufacturer of oboes and English horns, will be on site on the day of our dress rehearsal to bring instruments and bocals for test drives. We are grateful to Jim Phelan, Ruthie Garcia, and the entire A.Laubin family for their support of the Fall Concert. Lastly, we will be hiring the professional videographer again for the Fall Concert on November 5, and releasing the video for viewing on November 8.

Twists & turns of note for rehearsals in September

  • Library – As announced in the spring, we are moving to a fully digital platform for our library. Please click here to download your Fall Concert parts and print them as needed. This link includes all the Fall parts plus the Hindemith Symphony that we will be performing in the spring. You will need the Hindemith, as we are reading this on September 11, as an incentive for practice until we start actual rehearsals in March. If you do not have access to a printer, please connect with a buddy in the band who can print them for you. We will not have any hard copies to distribute! I am still waiting for some music to arrive, but several works are already posted and marked READY. I will continue to add works as they arrive, and I expect everything to be uploaded by August 31.
  • Scan downloads – The link to the download folder cited above is posted on this blog’s home page, along with weekly rehearsal plans and other important resource links, including the full season’s schedule of rehearsals.
  • First rehearsal – Monday, September 11 at TMH. This fall, Rosh Hashanah falls on Monday, September 25. We will have no rehearsal that Monday, BUT we will rehearse on Wednesday, September 27 at TMH instead. Please mark your calendars accordingly.
  • Fall Concert weekend – To facilitate the schedules of our guest conductor and guest soloist, the dress rehearsal for the Fall Concert will be on Saturday, November 4, 9:00-11:00 am. The concert is Sunday, November 5 at 3:00 pm, with the sound check at 1:00 pm.
  • Auditions for new members/subs – We have made plans for our annual auditions on Tuesday evening, September 5. Katherine has registered a large pool of auditionees, but we are still looking for additional clarinet candidates. If you know of someone who might be interested, please contact Katherine.

Joint performance with the West Point Band in Eisenhower Hall!

Back in December 2021, I pitched an idea to Lt. Col. Daniel Toven, Commander of the West Point Band. My proposal was to plan a joint concert for WSW and West Point, much like our Northshore Exchange, and I am extremely happy to say we are moving forward! The date planned is Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 2:00 pm (snow date Sunday, March 10 at 2:00 pm) in Eisenhower Hall at West Point. We recognize that this is the WCSMA All-County weekend, and it’s our hope that our players involved with that festival will be able to plan around that obligation if at all possible this far ahead of time to be able to perform with us.

Commander Toven liked my idea so much that he has proposed that we repeat this joint performance on a second date in a venue closer to Tarrytown. We are discussing several venue options and will share details when they are finalized.

The West Point Band is playing a concert tonight, August 19, in the Visitors Center at West Point. They are also playing a Labor Day concert on September 3 on The Plain at West Point. For more information, please visit https://westpointband.com/summer-concert-series.html

Rebooting the Wind Conducting Symposium

After an nine year hiatus, we have planned to officially join forces with the Music Educators of Bergen County and reboot the Wind Conducting Symposium, which I ran in New Jersey for over twenty years between 1987-2015. The symposium will run from Friday evening, May 31 through Sunday afternoon, June 2, 2024. The tentative site is Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan, in Bergen County. Dr. Robert Ambrose (Georgia State University), who was our guest conductor in 2018, and I will be the clinicians, and Teddi Sotiropoulos will serve as coordinator. There will be registration opportunities for wind ensemble lab performers, auditors, and conductors. With the combined personnel pools of MEBCI and WSW, we feel three wind ensemble sessions will be possible, and hope that everyone in WSW will register to play for at least one session. Complete details will be published in the coming months.

The last fleeting weeks of summer

Enjoy these last moments of summer. If you’re returning to academics, all the best for your school’s opening events. I look forward to seeing everyone on September 11!