Our fourth Caramoor performance is one week from tonight! I’ve made detailed plans for the remaining two rehearsals:

• Monday’s rehearsal will once again allow extra time for the Broughton, in preparation for our only rehearsal with Amy on Wednesday. We will rehearse everything on the program except the Burns. There will be a mid-rehearsal stretch.
• Wednesday’s rehearsal will be a modified run-through of the program:
  • All works will have uninterrupted play-throughs, in program order.
  • I’ve planned for 33 minutes to rehearse with Amy, hopefully giving plenty of time for a run-through, rehearsal of needed spots, plus another run-through.
  • There will be no mid-rehearsal stretch (because the concert has no intermission), but I have added about 2 extra minutes to each work’s run-through time to allow for mini-breaks throughout the rehearsal, to resemble the breaks we’ll have next Saturday for Bob’s introductions between pieces. It’s necessary for everyone to prepare both physically and mentally for the rigors of this rehearsal and the performance three days later.
• Saturday’s schedule:
  • 2:00 pm – Percussion rental is delivered. WSW percussion: let’s decide on an arrival/setup schedule on Monday night.
  • 3:30 pm – Everyone, please arrive on site no later than 3:30 pm for personnel check-in with David. As in past years, there are two dressing rooms reserved for WSW players upstairs behind the upstage cyclorama wall. Feel free to arrive in casual dress, and change clothes at the dinner break.
  • 4:00 pm – Soundcheck rehearsal, including rehearsals with Ryan Silverman, Bob Sherman, Amy McCabe, and the hand-bell ringers
  • 6:00 pm – Dinner break
  • 7:50 pm – Meet stage right and stage left to take the stage together
  • 8:00 pm – Concert downbeat
  • 9:45 pm  (approximate) – Concert ends. Everyone turns in folders. Early departure members head for cars asap. Everyone else, feel free to follow the crowd to watch the fireworks or join us for the post-concert debriefing in the backstage stage left picnic area. Feel free to bring adult beverages for celebrating!

Other final details:

• I will confirm auxiliary bell ringer information with those folks who volunteered at the end of rehearsal on Monday. Please see me in the pit when we finish.
• I have been assured that there will be gluten-free offerings on the dinner table this year. Ask the server to identify those selections. (If you have any reservations about this, I suggest bringing a backup meal of your own, just in case.)
• I need a final hand count of early departure parkers on Wednesday. We just need a count, not a list of names.
• Attire for this concert is white shirts/blouses (unbuttoned, no ties, no jackets; long or short sleeves are fine), black pants/slacks/skirts; black dress shoes and socks (plain black dress sandals for women is fine, but no white of any kind and no flip flops, please).
• We will collect all folders following this performance. It’s very important that no one take their folder home by mistake! Section leaders: please help us by double-checking your section when the concert ends.
• Thank you to the 35 members who already completed the Concert/Dress Commitment Form for next year. If you did not complete it by the deadline yesterday, please do so by Monday. David will be checking in with everyone who has not replied on Monday night. It’s really important that we know the landscape of our personnel for next year as we begin the summer break, so we can plan for auditions to fill in anticipated openings and begin the season in September with a full roster.
• Thank you to the 10 members who placed orders for the 2016-2017 compilation CD’s, SD cards, and Thumbdrives. Please place your order by July 1 for immediate fall delivery. (No money is due now; you can pay for your media on delivery.)

I hope that covers everything. Enjoy the weekend, see you Monday evening! And practice!

Thanks for a terrific rehearsal last night. We’re on course to complete what needs to be done for a successful concert on July 1.

When I checked last evening, the seating chart for our concert at Caramoor looked like this. So it appears that the promotion code for rows KK to the back worked. I count about 80 seats remaining at this point.

I will count the available bells at Masters tomorrow and reply to the 12 players who signed up for the auxiliary spots. This could give us 90 bell ringers overall — our largest group to date!

Thirty members have already replied to the membership canvas for next season. Please complete this form by this Friday, June 23. I’ll add this link to the Resources page, to help you find it again.

And as we discussed last evening, here’s the order form for 2016-2017 recordings. You can order CD’s, SD cards, and/or thumbdrives. The memory media include PDF’s of the graphics in the CD’s. The form is below, and I’ll add the link to the Resources page of my site as well. Please place your order by July 1. You can pay when you receive the media in September.

Rehearsal last Monday was very productive. Please practice those licks in 1812, because we’ll hit them again, in addition to the other works on the rehearsal schedule that is posted.

David and I would like to confirm everyone’s intentions for the 2017-2018 season before we leave for the summer after the Caramoor concert. So, please follow this link, or see the form below, to reconfirm your continuation as a full-time member and confirm each dress rehearsal and concert for next season. (Note that we have already been invited back to Caramoor 2018! The concert next year will be back on the actual Fourth of July next year.) We’d like to get everyone’s online response by Friday, June 23. Please have your calendars (especially school/concert calendars for music educators) in front of you when you complete the form, and mark these dates into your calendars as you work through them.

Compiling this information will give us a chance to catch up with any stragglers before we say good-bye for the summer on July 1. Also, please note that we continue to do this via an online form (rather than a paper handout) because this allows you to verify the information yourself, and eliminates wrangling with individual handwriting styles.

The form is available via the link above, and is repeated below. See you Monday!

Yes, I’m back on Monday. I’ve posted the rehearsal plan. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m very plan-driven. So please do check this every week so you’re familiar with what I set out to accomplish. I know must of you do check it (I look at the page statistics), but the group would benefit so much more if everyone took a look.

Congratulations and thanks to Stan, Ben, Mayr, Ian, Marc, Rich, Bob, Kirk, Scott, and Nate, for their focus, stamina, and musicianship at the Master School commencement exercises on Saturday. There were many compliments for the music!

We’ll be putting out the concert/dress rehearsal schedule this week via a Google Form and asking everyone to reply regarding next season.We want to get everyone’s reply before we break after Caramoor on July 1. I have all the guest artists and most of the major repertoire confirmed, and it’s going to be a magnificent 30th anniversary season.

And we’ve taken steps to insure that TMH is open and ready for us on time this coming Monday. The Board meets upstairs at 6:15 pm, rehearsal begins promptly at 7:30 pm. (Hopefully we now have all the bugs worked out with our new Monday night manager.) See you then.