One more Monday night

We’re continuing with the Marcus ensemble this Monday, November 8. See my home page to review personnel in each ensemble, listen to rehearsal recordings, and complete the health screening form.

NOTE: If you were not able to attend the Neiman rehearsal last week for any reason, please consider attending on Monday night! We won’t overcrowd the stage with a couple extra players!

The rehearsal on November 8 again follows a Random Farms theater performance, so unfortunately we cannot enter the Hall until 8:00 pm. Please meet in front of the Music Hall, next to the marquee and not blocking the doors, at 7:45 pm. As soon as we’re cleared to enter, we’ll move in, set up, and start the rehearsal. Please don’t gather at the rear stage door. And once it appears that all parents/children have left the theater, please don’t move past the interior lobby until the crew gives us clearance to move into the house and onto the stage. And again, because of the late start, please plan to rehearse an additional 15 minutes, until 10:00 pm, like we did last week.

Dress rehearsal & concert details

Ron MacKenzie has endorsed a full ensemble dress rehearsal on November 13 (scheduled for 9:00 am – 12:00 pm), and the Board has agreed, so we will be able to have one full rehearsal before the concert on November 14. Obviously, this will be a critically important dress rehearsal.

To review the important concert information details sent previously, please click here. This post includes the rehearsal schedule challenges that face us as we move into the winter cycle. If you have not already, please review these details. They are quite important.

ACB National Board – please support my candidacy

I was invited to run for the national board of the Association of Concert Band by the new president-elect, and so I’m currently on the ballot. I believe I can make a difference in an organization that is already doing great work for American community bands. If you hold an individual membership in ACB, I hope you’ll cast your ballot and vote for me. If you don’t hold membership, I urge you to consider it — and not just because I’m hoping to be elected. Membership includes the Naxos Classical Music Library Streaming Service at no charge (which is worth far more than the $40 annual membership fee, especially for teachers), and there are many other membership perks as well. You can join ACB by clicking here. Voting continues through December 5.

Rehearsal notes for Irish Tune

Lastly, I made a musical decision in the waning moments of rehearsal last week, which I now want to change. Those attending heard a choice I made regarding m.61. I would like to retract that decision now, and ask that everyone playing the melody take a breath between beats 1 & 2 of m.61 (between the slurs) to create a new and final four bar phrase. Everyone else with the counterline (Clarinet 1 & 3, Alto sax, all Horns, and Euphonium) please do not breathe between beats 1 & 2 of m.61, but instead play with strong air support at that point opposite the breath in the melody.

Please also note the da-da-da articulation indicated at m.49. We want a very light articulation as marked, but extremely connected. The end result should have a sound that is different than the phrases with simple slurs.

The next two Monday nights

We’re continuing with the Neiman & Marcus ensembles for 2 more weeks, on November 1 & 8. See my home page to review personnel in each ensemble. For our final two working rehearsals, the Neiman ensemble will rehearse again this Monday, November 1, and the Marcus ensemble will rehearse on November 8. 

The rehearsals on November 1 & 8 follow Random Farms theater performances, so unfortunately we cannot enter the Hall until 8:00 pm. Please meet in front of the Music Hall, next to the marquee and not blocking the doors, at 7:45 pm on both these weeks. As soon as we’re cleared to enter, we’ll move in, set up, and start the rehearsal. Please don’t gather at the rear stage door on these two evenings. Because of the late start, please plan to rehearse an additional 15 minutes, until 10:00 pm, on these two nights.

Dress rehearsal

Ron MacKenzie has endorsed a full ensemble dress rehearsal on November 13 (scheduled for 9:00 am – 12:00 pm), and the Board has agreed, so we will be able to have one full rehearsal before the concert on November 14. Obviously, this will be a critically important dress rehearsal.

Concert details

To review the concert information details I sent last week, please click here. This post includes the rehearsal schedule challenges that face us as we move into the winter cycle. If you have not already, please review these details.

Hang in there — we’re almost there!

Rehearsal Monday for Marcus ensemble at TMH, 7:30-9:45 pm

We had a very successful rehearsal last Monday with half the band. I’m planning on working on the same material this Monday with the other half of the group. Please see the home page of this site for Monday’s rehearsal plan, reminder lists of the Neiman and Marcus ensemble personnel, the link to the health screening form (please complete before arriving), and the audio recording of last week’s rehearsal. I plan to continue to make an audio recording of each week’s rehearsal for those of you who want to use it as a resource.

Important concert information

Since it’s possible and likely that we won’t all be together for a while, please take note of these important concert details.

• Dress rehearsal is Saturday, November 13, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm for all personnel. Final details for the dress rehearsal will be announced. The Grainger Museum Open House previously discussed for that afternoon has been cancelled. There is no special Wednesday rehearsal for this concert.
• Sound check is 1:00 pm on concert day, Sunday, November 14. The Hall is open to us at 12:00 pm that day for setup. 
• Attire for the concert is concert black, like all previous concerts. Please do not wear cologne or perfume on concert day.
• TMH crew will set up the risers and bring up chairs/stands/percussion on concert day. We just need to move our chairs/stands into place. They will also tear down everything after the concert.
• Concert run time is approximately one hour 15 minutes, with no intermission. The concert has 38 minutes of program time. 
• All audience members must present proof of COVID vaccination and wear masks during the performance. 
• The Grainger House representatives are preparing a short video that will be projected on the screen at the front of the stage at approximately 2:45 pm. The screen will then be raised, and then the players at the front of the stage will take their seats. I’ve invited Susan Edwards Colson, from the Grainger House board, to welcome the audience at the beginning of the program.
• We are presenting our second Life Achievement Award to Joe Greco near the end of the program. Joe has made innumerable contributions to music education in Westchester County and several of his former students from Ardsley High School play in our ensemble.
• Concert tickets are now available through the TMH Box Office. Please share this link for anyone looking to purchase tickets. (Many thanks to Rebecca Weissman for her help with the box office graphic and press release!)
• We are again offering half-price Friends & Family tickets @ $10.00 each. See Rachel or her designate to purchase these tickets, or contact her to reserve tickets (first and last name/number of tickets) for COD pickup at Will Call. (Note: for this season, the board suspended the quota of six F&F tickets per member.)
• Concert flyers are available for download on the Resources page. I will also have hard copies available on Monday.
• This concert will be webcast by TMH. The webcast can be viewed on our main ensemble site (www.westchestersymphonicwinds.org), and broadcast (and archived) via our YouTube channel. Please encourage friends and family outside the tri-state area to join us in this way. We are not ticketing viewership for the webcast, but I will be encouraging those watching to make a donation in lieu of the cost of admission. The board will assess the success of the webcast and make decisions regarding webcasts of future concerts.

Upcoming schedule challenges

Lastly, please buckle your seat belts and take note of these exceptions to upcoming rehearsals. We’re hoping to mitigate these situations, but finding alternate rehearsal space during this pandemic is tricky. Click here for the season rehearsal/performance schedule (also accessible from the menu bar above > Schedules).

• Late starts on November 1 & 8: Random Farms Children’s Theater performances precede our rehearsals on these evenings. We cannot enter the Hall until 8:00 pm. Gather next to the marquee on Main Street (please don’t block the doors) until we get the all clear. It is especially important to follow these directions while COVID protocols continue. Because of this, I will ask that we rehearse until 10:00 pm on these two evenings.
• TMH is not available on January 3, 10, 24, & 31, and February 7. When it rains, it pours. We are hoping to confirm an alternate rehearsal site for these dates soon. However, if we cannot, we will need to use these special backup dates:
  • Saturday, January 8, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
  • Saturday, January 15, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
  • Saturday, February 5, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm (this date was requested but not yet confirmed)
  • Wednesday, February 9, 7:30-9:45 pm
  • Winter concert dress rehearsal is Saturday, February 12, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm; Winter concert is Sunday, February 13 at 3:00 pm

Maintaining safety with half the band at a time

So we are going to continue with approximately half the band at a time, but instead of lines drawn strictly as sectionals, I’ve created two mini-ensembles with complete instrumentation. I thought of numbering them as 1 & 2, or A & B, but I didn’t want one to appear to be placed before the other.

So — Meet Neiman & Marcus, our sibling American shorthairs. They were rescues from a farm in Brewster. Emily Harrison helped us connect with the angel that found them and bottle fed them after their mother was killed on the road. So we’ll have the Neiman ensemble and the Marcus ensemble.

We’re going to have the Neiman ensemble rehearse on October 18 and the Marcus ensemble rehearse on October 25. Ron MacKenzie endorses this idea. Each ensemble has exactly 33 players, approximately half the total of the full group. Some players (who will be contacted) will play in both ensembles. By doing this, we’ll have a representative collection of the full instrumentation, and the potential of very successful rehearsals. I split each section down the middle. Trumpets, I used the Posy assignments for this division; we’ll just have to accept the unevenness of parts in some of the other pieces.

See the repertoire listed for the rehearsals on my front page. Complete the health screening form on Monday, also linked on the front page.

See below for the two ensemble rosters. See you either on one of the next two Mondays.

Neiman’s ensemble

Marcus’s ensemble