This has been a rough week. Janet was not only a loyal member of our ensemble since the year it was founded, she was a symbol of longevity in our group and in the American band movement. She will certainly be missed.

As noted in the obituary that Claudia sent out to everyone, the visitation for Janet is tomorrow, Saturday, from 3:00-5:00 pm at Waterbury and Kelly Funeral Home,1300 Pleasantville Road, in Briarcliff Manor. A memorial service will be held during the visitation at 3:30 pm. I am planning on attending, and I believe several of our Board members will be there as well. You are most welcome to join us.

I will write one more post tomorrow to discuss Monday’s rehearsal. It will include one more important form for the Chicago trip players, designed to collect the last information needed by our NCB hosts. We need to tie up this information by Monday night’s rehearsal.

I’m back, safely, slightly jet-lagged, and eager to see you all tomorrow night. I heard wonderful things about the sectional rehearsals with Matt & Rich and the workshop rehearsal with Tom.

I’ve planned, as best as I can, every rehearsal between now and July 4. Go to Rehearsal This Week to see the full plan. I’ll be fine-tuning each week, of course, until the week before each rehearsal, but at least I have a plan in place to help the various segments of the personnel plan for this array of performances in May, June, and July.

We now have specific questions from Northshore about accommodating the homestay people. I’ll talk more about this Monday night, and we’ll have another form for just the homestay people to complete. They also sent some more information about the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance.

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. See you tomorrow night.

We just learned from our group travel agent that we need confirmation of several key pieces of information for the group flight and hotel reservation, including your full name as it appears on your photo ID, your date of birth, and gender. We need this information by NOON on TUESDAY, MARCH 31, in order to process this data and return to the travel agent in time, so please reply immediately.

We are sorry to ask for this immediate reply, but the agent never warned us that we needed to collect birth dates for the flights, and now suddenly we need to collect this information and return it to them along with the hotel rooming lists this week. If you are not traveling to Chicago, you do not need to complete this form.

Thanks in advance for your immediate attention to this. I’ll write later in the week about the rehearsal on April 6.

John Lynch, along with his grad students, Fiona & Alexander, join me at the Opera Bar (next to the Sydney Opera House) after a day of classes at “The Con.”

Sydney has been amazing, simply amazing! During the past week I conducted rehearsals with the St. Aloysius College Symphonic Wind Ensemble (Four Dances from West Side Story), Newington College Wind Symphony (Zdechlik’s Chorale and Shaker Dance), and the Sydney Youth Orchestra Wind Symphony (Holst’s First Suite), plus I spoke at John Lynch’s Basic Conducting class at the Sydney Music Conservatorium. All that happened in just three days! I am very grateful to John for lining up these rehearsal clinics for me. It’s been a whirlwind of events here, but I have really gotten to know and enjoy Sydney very much.

I heard good things about last week’s sectionals and I am grateful to both Matt & Rich for working with you. This Monday, we’re back at TMH, and Tom McCauley will be taking the podium for the full rehearsal. The plan is Bernstein, Lauridsen, and Maslanka. Please come in plenty of time to help set up, warm up, and be ready in your seats for his downbeat promptly at 7:30 pm. Starting on time in my absence when guest conductors come in is especially important to me. Thank you in advance for planning ahead.

We have no rehearsal on Monday, March 30 (Westchester public schools vacation week for Passover/Easter), so we won’t meet again until Monday, April 6, back at TMH. And I’ll be back for that rehearsal!

I miss you all and am eager to share more about the trip when I see you. Have a great rehearsal with Tom!