Shana tova to all who are celebrating Rosh Hashanah. As announced, we are rehearsing tomorrow night. If you are celebrating the holiday with family and have not informed David Church, please contact him immediately. The rehearsal plan was posted earlier this week.
Looking ahead, MIchael Markowski will be visiting rehearsals on October 17 & 24 in preparation for the concert. This past week Michael asked if he could make some recordings on those two dates, as he is considering submitting Desert Sage to the NBA Revelli Composition Contest. Please keep this in mind as you prepare your parts. I hope you’ll join me in recognizing how important this could be for both the composer (and for us).
First, I wanted to share: I sent Michael the live recording of our read-through of the commission last week. It was unedited and untouched.
His response was, “Wow, this is probably one of the best first rehearsals I’ve ever heard! I think this is such a good fit for the band!” I think that is something to celebrate!
Michael has already added a Desert Sage page to his website. (I had to grin when I noticed that he’s rated the difficulty as “Hard.”) You can find the MIDI mockup recording, perusal score (August 1 version; extended program notes are not yet included in this version), and more.
Rehearsal plan
Please check the homepage for the rehearsal plan for this week.
State of the Band
I have allotted some time on Monday to talk about our financial situation at this point after losing so much audience revenue through the pandemic. We’ll be talking about our 35th Anniversary Technology Fund project, program ads, and strategies we can all utilize to bring our audience back into the Hall.
We are very excited about our first rehearsal of the new season on Monday. Please use the rear stage door and arrive at TMH by 7:15 pm to greet friends, help set up, find your seat/folder (a seating chart will be posted), and warm up. The plan is to read through the entire program, as is my custom for first rehearsals. I always post rehearsal plans on the homepage of my site for members. On that page you can also find links to the season’s rehearsal schedule, repertoire, instrumentation details for the current cycle, and the Google Drive folder with all parts in PDF form. Note that we will be handing out folders with all music for the fall cycle on Monday, but we are maintaining this folder for players who use iPads, and as a backup source of parts for subs.
Transitions
Resignations – We have received correspondence from three players who will not be returning this season. Please join me in thanking them for their many years service and dedication to our ensemble:
David Moore, clarinet Tommy Muehler, trumpet Dan Salvi, clarinet
Weddings! – Please join me in sending best wishes to two members who were recently married (not to each other!): Emily Harrison & Jonathan Kehoe (left) were married in January in Hawaii; and Ulysses & Kelsey Torres (née Williams) were married on August 26 in Long Beach.
Goals for 2022-2023
I have lots of musical, financial, and leadership goals for the new season, as we slowly make our way through this stage of the pandemic. I’ll share my ideas over the next few weeks. In the meantime, play some long tones, pick out a good reed, grease those slides, and I will see you Monday evening!
Several members have inquired about the new season’s rehearsal schedule. The tentative schedule can be found here. There are some conflicts to circumvent with alternate sites. As in past seasons, we ask that members be present for all rehearsals, with a maximum of two rehearsals missed for illness/emergency per concert cycle.
Tarrytown Farmers Market this Saturday!
Come out to the Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow Farmers Market in Patriots Park this Saturday, August 6 between 11:30 am – 1:30 pm, to hear our saxophone section performing at the TMH booth. The WSW saxophones will be playing a variety of classical, pop, jazz, patriotic, and other standards during their 2-hour set. You can expect to hear the Blues Brothers, Bohemian Rhapsody, Over the Rainbow, and much more! Your support is welcomed!
Markowski Commission completed!
I’m very excited to announce the completion of Michael Markowski’s latest work for wind band, DESERT SAGE, underwritten by the Tartell Family Foundation, which we will premiere on November 6.
The title is a play on words, in many ways:
It refers to the hearty desert flower that survives against all odds in its brutal climate. Desert Sage (also known as Purple Sage) is one of the “showy-ier” flowers in the desert with its bright purple blossoms.
It refers to the sage advice found in the cowboy songs of the US desert southwest, used as the melodic basis for this four-movement, twelve-and-a-half minute work. The movements are titled:
A Cowboy’s Life
Goodbye, Old Paint
Bury Me Not
Rye Whiskey
It is a reference and intentional salute to Percy Grainger’s own Lincolnshire Posy, along with its seminal origins as a gathering of ‘wildflowers’ (the folksingers) that were the basis of the folk songs used in that iconic suite. Michael’s ‘posy’ refers to both the flower and the cowboys who sang these collected songs.
It also refers to Michael’s own upbringing in his home state of Arizona.
I’m also sub-titling the concert itself as DESERT SAGE, because:
Our soloist, Christopher Creviston, is coming to us from Arizona State University.
Desert sage has a rich purple hue — very much a Northwestern University purple — a tribute to the composer of the first two works on the program — Jay Kennedy (NU ’73) — and his fiancé, Mallory Thompson, for whom both pieces were written. These performances will be the New York premieres of both works.
It’s going to be so exciting to share Michael’s music with you on this exciting program come September! When the parts are complete, I’ll post them to the Google Drive so you can access them along with the other pieces before the first rehearsal on September 12.
