Rehearsal Monday for Marcus ensemble at TMH, 7:30-9:45 pm

We had a very successful rehearsal last Monday with half the band. I’m planning on working on the same material this Monday with the other half of the group. Please see the home page of this site for Monday’s rehearsal plan, reminder lists of the Neiman and Marcus ensemble personnel, the link to the health screening form (please complete before arriving), and the audio recording of last week’s rehearsal. I plan to continue to make an audio recording of each week’s rehearsal for those of you who want to use it as a resource.

Important concert information

Since it’s possible and likely that we won’t all be together for a while, please take note of these important concert details.

• Dress rehearsal is Saturday, November 13, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm for all personnel. Final details for the dress rehearsal will be announced. The Grainger Museum Open House previously discussed for that afternoon has been cancelled. There is no special Wednesday rehearsal for this concert.
• Sound check is 1:00 pm on concert day, Sunday, November 14. The Hall is open to us at 12:00 pm that day for setup. 
• Attire for the concert is concert black, like all previous concerts. Please do not wear cologne or perfume on concert day.
• TMH crew will set up the risers and bring up chairs/stands/percussion on concert day. We just need to move our chairs/stands into place. They will also tear down everything after the concert.
• Concert run time is approximately one hour 15 minutes, with no intermission. The concert has 38 minutes of program time. 
• All audience members must present proof of COVID vaccination and wear masks during the performance. 
• The Grainger House representatives are preparing a short video that will be projected on the screen at the front of the stage at approximately 2:45 pm. The screen will then be raised, and then the players at the front of the stage will take their seats. I’ve invited Susan Edwards Colson, from the Grainger House board, to welcome the audience at the beginning of the program.
• We are presenting our second Life Achievement Award to Joe Greco near the end of the program. Joe has made innumerable contributions to music education in Westchester County and several of his former students from Ardsley High School play in our ensemble.
• Concert tickets are now available through the TMH Box Office. Please share this link for anyone looking to purchase tickets. (Many thanks to Rebecca Weissman for her help with the box office graphic and press release!)
• We are again offering half-price Friends & Family tickets @ $10.00 each. See Rachel or her designate to purchase these tickets, or contact her to reserve tickets (first and last name/number of tickets) for COD pickup at Will Call. (Note: for this season, the board suspended the quota of six F&F tickets per member.)
• Concert flyers are available for download on the Resources page. I will also have hard copies available on Monday.
• This concert will be webcast by TMH. The webcast can be viewed on our main ensemble site (www.westchestersymphonicwinds.org), and broadcast (and archived) via our YouTube channel. Please encourage friends and family outside the tri-state area to join us in this way. We are not ticketing viewership for the webcast, but I will be encouraging those watching to make a donation in lieu of the cost of admission. The board will assess the success of the webcast and make decisions regarding webcasts of future concerts.

Upcoming schedule challenges

Lastly, please buckle your seat belts and take note of these exceptions to upcoming rehearsals. We’re hoping to mitigate these situations, but finding alternate rehearsal space during this pandemic is tricky. Click here for the season rehearsal/performance schedule (also accessible from the menu bar above > Schedules).

• Late starts on November 1 & 8: Random Farms Children’s Theater performances precede our rehearsals on these evenings. We cannot enter the Hall until 8:00 pm. Gather next to the marquee on Main Street (please don’t block the doors) until we get the all clear. It is especially important to follow these directions while COVID protocols continue. Because of this, I will ask that we rehearse until 10:00 pm on these two evenings.
• TMH is not available on January 3, 10, 24, & 31, and February 7. When it rains, it pours. We are hoping to confirm an alternate rehearsal site for these dates soon. However, if we cannot, we will need to use these special backup dates:
  • Saturday, January 8, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
  • Saturday, January 15, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
  • Saturday, February 5, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm (this date was requested but not yet confirmed)
  • Wednesday, February 9, 7:30-9:45 pm
  • Winter concert dress rehearsal is Saturday, February 12, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm; Winter concert is Sunday, February 13 at 3:00 pm

Maintaining safety with half the band at a time

So we are going to continue with approximately half the band at a time, but instead of lines drawn strictly as sectionals, I’ve created two mini-ensembles with complete instrumentation. I thought of numbering them as 1 & 2, or A & B, but I didn’t want one to appear to be placed before the other.

So — Meet Neiman & Marcus, our sibling American shorthairs. They were rescues from a farm in Brewster. Emily Harrison helped us connect with the angel that found them and bottle fed them after their mother was killed on the road. So we’ll have the Neiman ensemble and the Marcus ensemble.

We’re going to have the Neiman ensemble rehearse on October 18 and the Marcus ensemble rehearse on October 25. Ron MacKenzie endorses this idea. Each ensemble has exactly 33 players, approximately half the total of the full group. Some players (who will be contacted) will play in both ensembles. By doing this, we’ll have a representative collection of the full instrumentation, and the potential of very successful rehearsals. I split each section down the middle. Trumpets, I used the Posy assignments for this division; we’ll just have to accept the unevenness of parts in some of the other pieces.

See the repertoire listed for the rehearsals on my front page. Complete the health screening form on Monday, also linked on the front page.

See below for the two ensemble rosters. See you either on one of the next two Mondays.

Neiman’s ensemble

Marcus’s ensemble

Return to full rehearsals on October 11

The Board has made the decision, with Ron MacKenzie’s endorsement, to return to full ensemble rehearsals on Monday, October 11, starting at 7:30 pm.

As stated before, if you are hesitant to join us for any reason, please contact David via the Gmail address he’s shared, or at personnel@westchestersymphonicwinds.org.

Visit my blog home page (wsw.ebernet.biz) and complete the weekly health screening form after 8:00 am on Monday. That link, as well as the rehearsal plan, can always be found on that page.

Dues for 2021-2022

After a year’s hiatus of required dues because of the pandemic shutdown, the Board has acted to reinstitute dues for full-time members. Dues are $100 per season for full-time members (September to July), regardless of the number of concerts of which you might opt out. You can pay by check (make payable to WSW), PayPal (online payments), Square (credit/debit cards in hand), and Zelle (a separate email will be sent with the Zelle details) — and we even accept cash! Please hand payments to Marge Hone, our intrepid treasurer. We are aiming to collect all dues by the end of October. 

If you have a concern about dues because of a personal financial situation, please speak to Marge; we try to work with everyone to accommodate periodic payments and more. 

I’m looking forward to seeing the full ensemble on Monday!

The Board has discussed the input that individual players shared over the past two weeks concerning our pending future rehearsals. Dr. Ron MacKenzie also shared his professional medical opinion.

• We must all agree that the November concert is compromised. There’s no sense in pretending that we can put things in place to make it normal. And there’s no guarantee that it will be a normal concert with a live audience; we need to continue to consider all possibilities, including a webcast with no in-person audience.
• As we plan, we need to keep in mind the perspective of those who are the most vulnerable physically and emotionally. No one should feel coerced to participate if not comfortable.
• We need to proceed with week-to-week decisions. Ron will provide professional medical input and data points each week. There’s no sense in making a call on rehearsals more than one week ahead, without a crystal ball.

For Monday, October 4, we will rehearse with woodwinds only.

• 7:30-8:45 pm – All woodwinds (rep TBA)
• 8:45-9:45 pm – All clarinets, solo Eb clarinet, solo piccolo, solo Bb clarinet, solo bass clarinet, solo oboe, solo bassoon, solo English horn (Posy III intensive; other woodwinds will be dismissed)
• We will run a Zoom during the entire rehearsal. All players are encouraged to watch/listen so we can maintain as much engagement as possible. That said, I have no expectations of 100% focused viewing, but I want to be sure we make the effort to provide everyone equal access to the work done that night.
• We’ll make a decision about October 11 after this rehearsal. Yes, it’s a holiday, but it’s on our calendar and we expect to rehearse in some form.
• We recognize that we cannot please everyone all the time with these difficult decisions. We are all doing the best we can for the musical, physical, and emotional health of everyone.

Please consider:

• Any player who is not comfortable with attending one or more rehearsals under these conditions should contact David Church (personnel@westchestersymphonicwinds.org) to be excused. 
• Although TMH has given us a mask waiver (because we are a 100% vaccinated, closed group), players who feel more comfortable wearing masks during rehearsals at TMH are encouraged to do so. However, no one is required to wear a mask during rehearsals at this point.
• The air conditioning with MERV filters will continue to run throughout our rehearsal. Consider the cooler temperatures when choosing rehearsal attire.
• The stage fog exhaust fan will run, with regular on/off intervals, throughout the rehearsal. We had reports of member headaches from running the fan consistently, and the generated noise level is also a concern. So we will go with intervallic running of the fan. 
• We will continue to monitor the viability of the concert itself in the weeks ahead.

Thank you for your patience and support as we continue to navigate these pandemic waters.