Anecdotes and Happenings from Student Teaching: Week 9

The week of the big concert.  How did it go might you ask?  Well, click on past the break and find out!



Yep, it was that week.  The week of the concert.  There was I sitting at my desk in my office that also doubles as the music library.  Cradling my mug of coffee.  Thinking how in the hell am I going to conduct this music and these extremely hard working musicians?

The week started off fairly normal, just rehearsals and such.  But these rehearsals were THE rehearsals.  Todd didn't have much patience for the percussionists this week.  He called them out on their weaknesses and "inspired" them to work harder and prepare for the concert.  He was very much this way with Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band as well, but to a much lesser degree.

This week we had after school rehearsals for an hour or two on both Wednesday and Thursday which was the night of the concert.  These rehearsals were a bit long and definitely taxing on the kids.  Make no mistake, they went really well and they were absolutely essential for the concert.  But by the end of Thursday's after school rehearsal we could tell the kids were definitely very burnt out.  They were tired, stressed, hungry and now feeling exhausted from playing so much over the course of this week.

Our concert was a pretty long one with an intense program.  This was the order of the ensembles that performed.

Pre-Concert:
3 Jazz Combos

Concert:
Drumline
Pep Band
Jazz Band
Top Jazz Combo
Symphonic Band
Wind Ensemble

To say the least, a logistical nightmare shuffling all those musicians on and off stage, arranging stands, chairs and making sure the stage was set up for each ensemble.  I can't even imagine how stressful it would be to plan this thing on my own.

I played bass with one of the jazz combos and ended up playing guitar for a combo and the Jazz Band as our guitarist was having a family emergency, so I was kept pretty busy most of the night.  Todd let me conduct two pieces with the Symphonic Band and one with the Wind Ensemble.

For the Symphonic Band, the first piece I conducted was the March from Mooreside Suite by Holst.  Earlier in the term while rehearsing this one, it felt like it would be our anchor, and it definitely was up until Wednesday's rehearsal.  The band played it extremely well and it was a fantastic opening.

Next was The Headless Horseman, a programmatic work by Timothy Broehge that ,as it's name implies, was festive for the concert and was quite fun for the kids.  It was easily their favorite piece.  And they managed to put on an absolutely stunning performance of it which the crowd reacted to in an extremely positive way.

The last piece I conducted was Amazing Grace by Frank Ticheli and this was with the Wind Ensemble.  Countless amounts of rehearsal, spot checking, precision drills and tuning exercises went into the preparation of this work.  I really went the extra mile for this piece and on Thursday night, the kids went the extra mile for me as well.  It was easily the high point of the concert and the huge display of emotion from this band really showed that everything we've done to prepare our kids in technique has payed off.  The applause was thunderous, and a few kids in the audience said they could see people crying at the high point (tears of joy I hope).  I almost let off a tear myself but kept my composure because I'm a man and men don't cry ;)

The concert went extremely well and my fellow teaching colleagues were absolutely blown away by our program.  It's just such a shame I will only hang around for a half this year, so I won't get to see them grow into a band that is the stuff of legends.

Anyway, in other stories, I did a ton of listening to music with my kids this week, both in our jazz classes and even in our theory classes.  It was cool to show them some stuff they have never heard before and to hear them enjoy it and even ask for more.

Also, this week was the end of the first term so the rest of my week was spent entering grades and making sure every assignment and score is accounted for.  Tomorrow is a teacher work day so I will spend more time checking on grades and such.

Anyway, if you were unable to make it to the concert, then you missed out!  Fortunately, there will be concert video up pretty soon.  I will post links when they are available!