Can you believe this ad dates from 1996? It seems like yesterday. And so it goes with the summer — it’s almost gone!

Our auditions are on Tuesday, September 3 (contact David if you have someone to recommend for an audition). Our first rehearsal is Monday, September 9 at TMH. And with it we will kick off our 32nd season. And it promises to be an amazing season!

32nd Season

This year, we will be able to promote the band as an award-winning ensemble! Capturing The American Prize is a huge milestone. We’ll be promoting this with special public relations announcements as soon as we’ve heard about the results of the two remaining nominations.

The entire season’s repertoire is published here. Our guests include apprentice conductors Rich Dashnaw and Nate Brewster, guest conductors Dr. Albert Nguyen (pronounced “Win”), Dr. Patricia Cornett, and Joey Bello (who performed with us previously as a euphonium soloist), and soloists Jenn Dashnaw (clarinet), Pete Friedmann — yes, as in Friedmann Fanfare (narrator), Joshua Pierce (piano), and Chris Creviston (alto sax). We’ll be featuring a student brass quintet composition by Grace Dashnaw (Ithaca College ’21) and several member soloists on our Fall Concert. And the whole season wraps up with Maslanka’s monumental Symphony No. 4 in May. “Get your tickets now!” as they say.

The concert dates for this season and next season are listed in the right sidebar of the home page. Click here to see the detailed rehearsal/performance schedule for 2019-2020. 

Silent Movies with Nate’s ensemble

Another great opportunity to see WSW members in action!

The VOB Film Festival will be screening the silent film classics “The Great Train Robbery” and Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” accompanied by live music. The ten-piece orchestra will include WSW members Deb and Rich Dashnaw, Mark Dodge, Chris Larsen and Ryan Cerullo, and will be conducted by Nate Brewster. And while the films may be old, the scores are new, composed by Craig Marks (2014) and John Muccino (2013). 

There are two showings, on Friday August 30 at 7:30 pm and Sunday September 1st at 7 pm at Drew Methodist Church in Carmel, NY. You can go to www.vobfilmfestival.com for tickets, and more info on the entire festival, or just click the flyer.

The wait appears to be over. Yesterday, The American Prize tweeted the following message, below. The winners in the Band/Wind Ensemble Performance category (university, community, and high school divisions) will be announced tomorrow, Saturday, August 3 at 5:00 pm on their blog — http://theamericanprize.blogspot.com/

Bookmark the site and check in tomorrow at 5:00 pm!

Through a long series of events, starting in March and ending this past week, which are too complex to detail here, we have lost the originally published concert date of January 25, 2020. The Board acted and accepted Sunday, February 9 at 3:00 pm in its place. The dress rehearsal is moved to Wednesday, February 5 at 7:30 pm.

In order to move ahead, we need to ask you to confirm this new date. I promise this is a really quick and easy form! We just need your email, name, and yes/no to the new date.

Please click here to complete the form, or use the form below. Please complete as soon as possible (we’re aiming for August 5), but if you have school/work commitments which pivot on this change, please answer as best you can and alert us in the Comments section of the form. Thank you for your resilience!

PS – Still no news on the three American Prize nominations. We’re still in “finalist” status for all three.

 

This week:

• a new job opening,
• the winner of the Rep Bracket Challenge,
• auditions for principal horn, 
• summer Board meetings,
• The American Prize (don’t get too excited yet),
• a sincere note of thanks, and
• a special bonus!

Job opening

Rich Dashnaw sent me this notice for a job opening in the Lakeland Central School District. Click the flyer below for details and application information. Note that the application deadline is July 15.

Maslanka Symphony No. 4

I am very excited that the membership has chosen David Maslanka’s Symphony No. 4 as the winning selection in this spring’s Repertoire Bracket Challenge. The symphony presents many technical and musical challenges, but I believe that the ensemble is ready for this milestone work, and this will provide for a thrilling finale at our Spring 2020 concert. I’ve researched the rental costs, purchased the score, and have started my research. Thanks for everyone who participated in the voting. 

I’m hard at work completing the programming for next season and will share it with everyone when it’s all set.

Principal horn auditions

We need to fill the principal horn vacancy so we start the new season with a new principal in place. Auditions for principal horn will follow the same format as all member auditions, including the player’s choice of movements from a standard concerto or sonata, highlighting technical and lyrical abilities, plus sight-reading. Auditions will be heard as part of our season auditions on Tuesday, September 3, starting at 6:00 pm at Irvington Presbyterian Church. 

Current members of the horn section are encouraged to consider auditioning for the principal position. We also encourage all members to invite qualified horn candidates from outside the current roster to consider auditioning for membership and the principal chair. In addition, we encourage qualified candidates on all instruments to consider playing an audition for substitute and permanent spots. As we all know, personnel situations can turn on a dime, so having a deep pool of qualified players on all instruments is essential for the success of the ensemble.

David Church will once again schedule all auditions and answer related questions. Please contact him if you have questions, or would like to recommend a player for an audition.

Summer Board meetings

The Board will meet at Rachel’s house on:

• Thursday, July 25 at 7:30 pm
• Thursday, August 29 at 7:30 pm

The American Prize

Still no news. Be assured that I’ll blast out the results when they publish winners in any of the three categories in which we are finalists.

Thank you

Once again, thank you so much for an outstanding season. When the CD compilation is ready, we’ll send out an order form. This year, we’ll be picking the very best from the three TMH concerts, plus the ACB and Caramoor performances.

Bonus video!

See what you get when you read to the bottom of my posts? I’ll just put this right here in case you haven’t seen it yet. Thanks to Rachel for the initial heads up on this. Yes, I already sent this to Joe Higgins. Be sure to have the volume up so you can hear the announcer call the race.