Michael’s reaction

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.

The new season

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!

The Markowski commission has been completed!
See details below.

Tentative rehearsal schedule has been posted

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!

• 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:
  1. A Cowboy’s Life
  2. Goodbye, Old Paint
  3. Bury Me Not
  4. 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.

• 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.

21st century media

Undoubtedly you’ve noticed that we have not taken CD orders nor have distributed concert recordings since 2019. The combination of the pandemic shutdown and the decreasing use of CD’s/increasing use of streaming media made all this more complex. The board has been aware of this schism and we are very grateful to Eric Milkie for his extensive research and work in this area.

Introducing Bandcamp!

Although Apple Music (iTunes) is currently the industry standard for distributing artists’ streaming content, the service is expensive and cumbersome for artists and ensembles like WSW. Eric’s research found that Bandcamp is our best choice for an alternate streaming service. Click here to read Bandcamp’s corporate overview page.

We started with a sandbox trial of Bandcamp for the board only, which was very successful, and we have now launched our first album – the 2022 Caramoor Concert! Just click this link or the graphic above to see all details and purchase the album. After this initial offering, we will be adding additional concerts, one at a time, until we’ve offered all the concerts since our last CD. At that point, we intend to highlight past premium concerts.  Recordings will be available as ‘albums’ (entire concerts).

Payments/Options

• The cost per concert album download is $10; individual tracks are available for $3. CD’s used to be $15, so this is a bargain!
• Purchasers can pay with PayPal or any credit card.
• We will be adding Bandcamp to our website, so our regular patrons will be able to access these recordings as well. (Look for a separate post soon from that site and on our social media sites to advertise this.)
• Once you’ve visited the WSW page Bandcamp.com, we encourage you to click the “Follow” button, so you’ll get automatic announcements when we release future albums.
• You can also purchase an album as a gift for someone else. All you need is their email address.
• Patrons who are especially generous may also add a donation to the album purchase.

Listening options after purchase

So once you’ve downloaded a concert, how do you listen to it? You have several options:

• Listen to it directly as streaming media in a browser on the bandcamp.com (on a laptop or mobile).
• Listen to it on the Bandcamp app (available for both Apple iOS and Android) through earphones or by sharing to Bluetooth speakers. (It sounds great on my Sonos system at home!)
• Download the audio files to your computer (in one of many different available formats (AIFF, MP3, M4A, and many more), and then add to your computer’s media player. If you have an iPhone and a Mac, you can upload the files to Apple Music (iTunes) and then share them as a playlist on your iPhone. If you are using a PC, a different media player, or an Android phone, we recommend listening directly via the Bandcamp app, but we have started this Bandcamp FAQ’s doc to help anyone who has technical questions for uploading/sharing files to mobile devices.

Can I still buy a CD?

The answer is Yes and No.

• Yes – We have surplus CD supplies of selected past concert recordings. Contact me with your request and we’ll do our best to connect you with your requested recording.
• No – Moving forward, we are no longer going to offer CD’s of concert recordings. The market has moved from hard-copy media to streaming digital media. Fewer and fewer people own CD players in their cars and connected to their home audio systems. And by changing direction, we are being environmentally-conscious by making a smart, sustainable choice to help stop adding more plastic into our landfills.

The board and I hope that you will be very excited that WSW has made this dynamic move forward. We encourage you to share the WSW Bandcamp link with family and friends, and follow WSW on Bandcamp as described above.

If you have questions, please contact me. We’ll come up with answers, reply to you, and share the questions and answers on the FAQ page.