Timeline for Sunday

See the front page for details tomorrow. Please come early to help set up. Backstage will open at 11:00 am, sound check is as 12:00 pm.

Dangerous cold!

Please take care if you are out and about today. Don’t leave your instrument in the car, not even for 5 minutes! And be especially careful when stepping over packed snow and ice. We need everyone in one piece for tomorrow!

All reports indicate that today’s weather, with the biting wind and sub-zero wind chills, will moderate tomorrow. That should help. But there is still the need for all of us to be careful at all times outside.

Spring Cycle starts February 23

There are no rehearsals on February 9 or 16. We start up again with a read-through of the spring program on February 23. The front page has the link for the Maslanka parts. The other music will be posted asap, and I’ll send out a notice on Slack and via post to confirm when everything is ready. (I have all the music, I still have to separate the scans into individual parts and code their file names.)

Gratitude

I continue to be grateful for all of you, and for all the work and personal effort that has gone into the preparation of tomorrow’s concert. I’m looking forward to seeing you and bringing all this music to life for our audience!

H. Robert Reynolds, 1934-1926

It is with great sadness that I share the news that Bob Reynolds passed away yesterday at age 91. It’s impossible to assess the impact Bob had on our the musical world as a conductor, teacher, author, arranger, and mentor. I feel so fortunate to have worked with him on two occasions and to have heard several of his performances live. I will definitely include a memorial to him in next season’s programming.

Concert week

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.” — Leonard Bernstein

Here we are at the end of a most unusual rehearsal cycle. We have very little time remaining during our rehearsals this week on Monday and Wednesday, and we need to make every minute count. Please plan your travel to both of these rehearsals very carefully to allow extra time for traffic, frustrations caused my packed snow drifts, and the unexpected, and please help us stay on time during the rehearsals.

I have reworked the rehearsal plans for Monday (UUFNW) and Wednesday (TMH). Please review them here. IMPORTANT: Everyone who took home one or more music stands in December must bring it on Wednesday. We’ll confirm by Wednesday if the stands can stay at TMH until Sunday.

Personnel listing in the program

In order to keep everyone focused on the musical tasks at hand, I’m not going to circulate a program personnel list to check on Monday night. Instead, please check the roster here, and contact Katherine or me directly to make edits or corrections. Please do so as soon as possible, but no later than 7:30 pm on Monday.

Tickets for WSW on February 8 at 2:00 pm

Please send colleagues, family, and neighbors to the TMH Box Office site for this program. Click the link or copy/paste this URL in your correspondence and posts:
https://tickets.tarrytownmusichall.org/eventperformances.asp?evt=3127

Share the coupon code we discussed in rehearsal and posted in the WSW Members Slack workspace (I’ll repeat it again on Monday) to unlock the discounted $21 tickets (cited on the site as “Coupon 1”).

Thank you in advance

Our work together this week will demand your very best in regard to promptness, focus, musicianship, and dedication. Thank you in advance for bringing your best and most authentic selves, so we can make the best of this limited time together, and make 1+1 truly equal 3.

Excelsior Symphony Orchestra at Diller Hall

The Excelsior Symphony Orchestra is presenting a wonderful program next Saturday, February 7 at 3:00 pm at Diller Hall, on the campus of the Hackley School in Tarrytown. The orchestra will pay tribute to Bill Eckfeld, prominent Westchester conductor/composer and the former orchestra director at White Plains High School, who passed a few weeks ago. If you haven’t already considered attending, I urge you to take a look. I’m planning on attending — hope to see many of you there.

Rehearsal cancelled on Monday

White Plains Schools are closed tomorrow, Monday, January 26, and so WSW rehearsal tomorrow night is also cancelled.
Stay tuned for new rehearsal plans for February 2 & 4. Stay safe in the snow!

A smart conductor — he brought 2 batons, in case one blows away!

Rehearsal on Monday

My crystal ball still has not arrived from Amazon, but it doesn’t look good. If White Plains closes their schools on Monday, our rehearsal is toast. And if that happens, it’s likely that it will not be safe for anyone to be on the roads Monday night.

It’s not good to call a rehearsal before the storm even starts, so I’m putting off the official call until tomorrow afternoon. I will ask our board to confer with me to make the decision — which at that point might be a fait accompli — but I think it’s best, just in case this massive storm turns out to be a dud.

Please check your email again tomorrow afternoon. I will also post the news in the #cancellations-delays channel on the WSW Members workspace on Slack.

In the meantime, I will work on a Plan B rehearsal plan for Monday, February 2 and Wednesday, February 4. It is possible and likely that these will both end up being working rehearsals, foregoing a formal dress rehearsal run-through on Wednesday.

Some good news

The sutures came out on Wednesday! My surgeon has cleared me to conduct in two stages: with my right hand only for two weeks, and then both hands thereafter. So expect to see me conducting with reckless abandon on February 4. I want to express my thanks again to Jessica Stein-Natale, Jasmine Britt, Alex Gray, and Devon Toland for their dedication and musicianship during the rehearsals when I could not conduct in January.

Excelsior Symphony concert – Saturday, February 7 at 3:00 pm

The Excelsior Symphony (formerly the St. Thomas Orchestra) is performing the day before our own concert at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, in their beautiful new performing arts center, Diller Hall. As part of the concert, they will be honoring the life and legacy of Bill Eckfeld, former conductor and orchestra director at White Plains High School, who passed on January 17. I recommend attending if you are available.

Weathering the storm

Stay tuned. Stay warm. And please stay safe.