Rehearsal at New Rochelle on Monday

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Rehearsals on June 9 & 16

For many of you, these last weeks in June are crazy with final performances, projects, and meetings. I hope all goes well as you close out another school year.

Our next two rehearsals are scheduled at New Rochelle HS, followed by the two final rehearsals at TMH (at this point, all four are confirmed as such).

Please review the metronome markings for the Kander & Ebb medley, cited below and with the rehearsal plan on the home page. Please transfer these tempi into your parts.

Also please note that our WSW board is meeting in the NRHS Band Room (mostly likely at the table next to the piano) at 7:00 pm on Monday. Please give us space and time while you warm up and prepare for the rehearsal. Thank you.

The 2025-2026 season

As announced last week in rehearsal, our next season is filled with some very exciting focus works, including (but not limited to) The Pines of Rome (Fall), Trittico and Bamboo Shoots and City Streets (Winter), and — after a 6 year delay — Maslanka’s epic Symphony No. 4 (Spring).

Also announced last week: We have been invited to play for a Westchester County Tourism event on Saturday, September 27, probably at 12:00 pm, at Croton Point Park. We’ll have confirmation of that soon. If confirmed, we will simply repeat the Caramoor 2025 program without the vocal selections, and possibly with an easy tweak or two.

Please click here to complete the 2025-2026 Commitment Form.

  • Be aware that these concert dates are confirmed at TMH, but we may need to ask for some flexibility if our performance calendar is compromised.
  • Please complete this form by Monday, June 30, so we can catch stragglers by our last meeting on July 4.
  • Reminder: please contact me directly if you need to request taking a year leave-of-absence in 2025-2026.

Kander & Ebb tempi

m.1 – quarter=138
m.19 – quarter=128
m.27 – (swing 8ths)
m.43 – quarter=154 (back to straight 8ths)
m.53 – quarter=130
m.61 – quarter=140
m.86 – half=96
m.114 – quarter=104 (swing 8ths)
m.130 – (back to straight 8ths)
m.132 – quarter=120
m.136 – half=100
m.162 – half=112
m.194 – half=88
m.202 – half=120
m.214 – quarter=92
m.222 – quarter=84
m.226 – quarter=136
m.251 – quarter=104
m.255 – quarter=116
m.263 – half=63
m.265 – quarter=112

Return to rehearsals tomorrow at WPHS

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Rehearsals for Caramoor begin June 2

  • Check the home page for the download folder and rehearsal plan for June 2. This rehearsal will be held at White Plains HS. Be sure to download/print your parts and have them ready for the first rehearsal.
  • Challenges – Be sure to look over these tunes before Monday night:
    • Barton’s arrangement of timeless Kander & Ebb selections is tricky!
    • The Cowboys represents technical and articulation challenges.
    • 1812 – need I say more?
  • Library: I am not thrilled with the current version of The Free Lance (which I obtained free of charge from the Marine Band library). I’m looking for the Revelli edition of this march. It is temporarily out of stock on JWPepper. If you have access to the parts, please contact me!
  • We’ve lost the June 9 & 16 rehearsals at TMH. We will rehearse at New Rochelle on those dates. June 23 is also looking “iffy” at TMH. Will update that situation asap.

2025-2026 season

I have all our guest artists lined up for next season, and it’s an exciting array of talent. I also have the core focus works chosen for each program. I will share these at rehearsal.

I’ve had some obstacles creating the commitment form for 2025-26, but the form will be sent out soon. We will be looking for everyone to complete this form by June 30 (prior to our Caramoor performance).

Next rehearsal June 2

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Happy Memorial Day weekend, and thank you to all of our members and associates who have served our country. We are grateful!

Rehearsals for Caramoor begin June 2

  • Check the home page for the download folder and rehearsal plan for June 2. That rehearsal will be held at White Plains HS. Be sure to download/print your parts and have them ready for the first rehearsal.
  • The commitment form for 2025-26 will be sent out soon. We will be looking for everyone to complete this form by June 30 (prior to our Caramoor performance).

A note from Steve Cohen

Thank you so much for your truly fantastic playing on the Navarro 2nd Concerto.  Now that it’s over and I can relax (phew!) I can appreciate more and more your efforts with the piece.  It’s a fun piece I think, and it was wonderful to play it with all of you.  Can’t really thank you enough for all your work putting it together.  Extremely memorable for me and I won’t forget it.  You all sounded really terrific!
Steve

WSW on YouTube

If you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to visit our WSW YouTube page to watch the videos from the May concert!

Caramoor downloads & concert video

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Caramoor parts

All the parts for Caramoor are now ready for download. Click this link to access your parts. Visit the home page for a reminder of the schedule for the upcoming weeks leading to July 4.

Spring Concert video

The Spring Concert video is ready! We are so pleased with the production quality of this recording. Many thanks to Andrew Merelis (video producer), Peter Weitzner (audio recording engineer), Eric Milkie (WSW webmaster and YouTube coordinator), Rebecca Weissman (graphics), and Ed Herko and family for the kind donation that made this video production possible. The combined effort has yielded a recording of which we can all be proud.

This link is a playlist of all the selections on the program, with the introductions edited as separate YouTube links. Special thanks to Eric Milkie for the extra time to create this. Please share the link to the playlist, or the individual selection links with friends, colleagues, and family. Enjoy!