Please be sure to read this entire blog entry by clicking this link!

I’m serious that Carmoor is coming. Paul Rosenblum, the Managing Director of the Caramoor Festival, is coming to observe this Monday’s rehearsal. He’s eager to meet you and hear the group play. So this rehearsal takes on some serious implications!

IMPORTANT: As discussed last week, I need to  ask you to please download, print, and bring your own 76 Trombones part on Monday. Follow this link to take you to the Dropbox I created with the 76 Trombones parts. You do not need a Dropbox.com account, and you do not need to sign in. Find your part, click Download in the upper right-hand corner, open the download, and print. Look for the double bar and make sure you print all pages. Percussion: please note that there are 6 parts for Bass Drum, Cymbals, Drum Set, Glock & Triangle, Snare Drum, and Timpani. Don’t wait until Monday afternoon to download your parts! Inevitably, doing so will yield some kind of problem.

I had a long discussion with Paul today. Besides learning that he intends to attend Monday’s rehearsal, here is some important new information:

• July 4 arrival times:
  • Percussion should plan on being on site by 2:30 pm for percussion load-in.
  • All other members should plan on arriving by 3:30 pm for our 4:00 pm rehearsal.
• Paul is providing a hospitality table on arrival – coffee, water, fruit, cookies – and will provide dinner for us (fried chicken, sides, beverages). This was a surprise, and is most welcomed! (Please note that this dinner is for WSW members only; unfortunately, he cannot extend this to WSW family members or handbell ringers. They are welcome to bring picnics or purchase food on site that day.)
• Paul also provided a promotion code which can be used to purchase final tickets at 50% off! This applies to all seats ($36, $46, $56, $76) except the most expensive seats ($86). Use promo code PBRG at check-out on the web, or you can use it if you call the Box Office 914-232-1252. True, I wish we’d known about this earlier, but this just happened today.

Thank you for bringing those downloadable parts. See you Monday, for a prompt start at 7:30 pm. Practice diligently!

I neglected to include the link to the Information Sheet I created for interested handbell choir directors. Click here for complete information and share with handbell contacts as necessary.

Thanks.

We have our second rehearsal for Caramoor tomorrow evening, 7:30 pm, at Port Chester Middle School. We’ll have access to the large bass drum and the podium. I expect that the chairs and stands situation will be similar to last week. The rehearsal plan is posted. A large portion of rehearsal will be devoted to the Tchaikovsky.

If you have contacts in the Handbell community, please share this post and the form at the bottom. Directors of handbell choirs are asked to register once, with all the names of participants.

The Board agreed on Thursday night on this attire for July 4 for Caramoor:

• Men: white shirts (short sleeve shirts are acceptable or long sleeves turned up) without ties, black pants, black shoes, black socks
• Women: white blouses, black tea-length skirts or black dress slacks, black shoes

Thanks go out to Denise Ruchala, Mary Eberling, Ben Acrish, Tim Takagi, Marc Perler, Lisa Romeo, Rich Williams, Kirk Silver, Chris Carbone, and Nate Brewster, who braved the brilliant sunshine and played for The Masters School commencement ceremonies today. I do appreciate your stamina and musicianship. There were all kinds of great comments, ranging from “How did you survive in that constant sun?” to “We really liked the new recessional!” So bravo and thank you!

I’m writing with a quick reminder that we are rehearsing on Monday evening at Port Chester Middle School (click here for directions). We will not be rehearsing the Caramoor cycle at TMH because of issues connected to moving our equipment back and forth to the annex.

The rehearsal on Monday will include some discussion about the May 17 concert (I want to encourage a discussion about how you felt about the various successful moments in the program), and then we will read the entire July 4 program.

See you on Monday for a 7:30 pm start!