First, it’s hard to focus on any personal matters in the wake of Tuesday’s tragedy on Metro North. I pray that no one’s family or friends were affected. It was a frightening event.

Congratulations on a wonderful program on January 25! There are many things to celebrate, and as we’ve done before, I’d like to invite everyone to share reactions, thoughts, and impressions when we gather for our first rehearsal next Monday, which will be held at our alternate rehearsal site, Scarsdale MS. Directions are posted on the Rehearsal This Week page.

We have one new piece that I must ask you to download, print, and bring next Monday. We purchased the parts for the Overture to North by Northwest, which were delivered by PDF. Please click here to go to the Dropbox I created for these parts. This is the same system we used to distribute the Carmoor vocal pieces last summer. Find your part by file name, and print only the pages needed for your particular part. (Trumpets, horns, and percussion: your section leaders will send you your part assignments so you know what part to print.) These parts are ready to download, you can start to do so anytime. Just remember that we will not have printed parts for NxNW at rehearsal. All other music will be distributed at that time.

This next cycle of rehearsals will include preparation for our May 16 concert at TMH, our June 14 concert in Chicago, and our July 4 concert at Caramoor. I will be planning rehearsals carefully so the Chicago pieces are always grouped together on the same evenings. I will also be planning to include two rehearsals with 30 minutes of clinic time, for music educators in our group who’d like to have a chance to conduct our ensemble in a workshop setting. More details about this will be posted soon.

Lastly, I have a made a decision to make a change in the program for Chicago. Although we will keep the O Magnum Mysterium on the May program, we will substitute Marbled Midnight Mile for it on the Chicago program. I think this is a better choice because the percussion section is more involved in this piece, and we have many more exposed wind solos throughout, giving more players an opportunity to be heard. So the Chicago program will now be Maslanka – Bryant – Bernstein, plus the two Sousa marches combined with NCB. I’ll talk more about this on Monday.

We will be monitoring the weather and I will be in touch again over the weekend prior to Monday’s rehearsal.

Just to confirm – we canceled this rehearsal a couple weeks ago. I also announced, “Next rehearsal on February 9 at Scarsdale MS,” when finishing the sound check on concert day.

Stay warm, drive safe — see you next week. Next post has lots of information for next week, including links for downloading North by Northwest, which I ask you to print and bring with you. Trumpet, horn, and percussion section leaders are working on assignments and will email you later this week.

We’re sending messages out to our patron database just to make sure they all know that Mother Nature is not standing in our way. I’ve also posted it on our Facebook page.

The Hall will be open by 12:15 pm for setup. I sent the photo we took of the risers in November so the setup should be spot on. Sound check is at 1:00 pm. We’ll be playing, but we’ll be doing more talking and less playing than usual because of the nature of the program.

And please remember that we are collecting all music folders at the end of the concert. Do not take any home afterwards. Thanks!

A quick check in — We have our regular rehearsal tonight, and our dress rehearsal on Wednesday evening, both at TMH. I am aware that the “gloom ‘n doom” forecasters are calling for “light snow” on Wednesday, and I’m doing my anti-snow dance to keep it as light as possible.

Looking ahead, we need to poll everyone again for the rescheduled date for the Masters School concert in Dobbs Ferry, now proposed for Saturday, March 7 at 7:30 pm (call at 6:00 pm). I need to plan ahead with both the school and the percussion rental. Please fill out the form below as soon as possible, but no later than Sunday, because we won’t see everyone after the concert until our next rehearsal on February 9. I hope we have the same ultra-positive response we had for January 10. The rep would be our Winter concert reprised (without the trumpet soloists and Colas). Thanks in advance.