The Read-Through

If you’ve been following along, you know that we had a two-hour rehearsal this morning to read through our anticipated Midwest program for the first time. I have to confess to two things:

1) While planning this rehearsal, I was surprised by how excited and nervous I was for the kids to play the stuff. I couldn’t wait to get up and get to school.

2) I recorded our first time through a new warm-up chorale this morning…and I just can’t post it. It was that rough, and my ego won’t let me do it.

I know it’s frustrating without titles, but we’ll continue keep it under wraps until the program is approved by the Midwest Board. I was very pleased with how the kids read the five easiest pieces. Once we got about 75 minutes in, though, things started falling apart, especially concentration wise. I was very surprised by how poorly a grade three-ish baroque transcription went…the independence of parts really seemed to catch them off guard, and it went downhill from there. Maybe it was the way I scheduled the rehearsal, from easiest to hardest, but the two hardest works were just short of train wrecks. We’ll spend a little time the rest of the week on one of them, just so I can be sure it’s going to go by December. Fortunately we still have a little time here to make some alterations to the program if necessary.

My current plan is to work on the three medium difficulty pieces for our next concert in late September, we’ll also prepare two other works that we won’t be performing at Midwest…probably something easier, and something harder. While we’re preparing this program, we’ll also dabble in some of the harder works because there are only four weeks between concerts. We’ll save the easier stuff for our mid-November concert, which only has a three-week preparation window. After that point we’ll have five weeks to put the whole program together for Midwest.

So the breakdown, at this point, looks like this:

August 18: Band Camp Concert – No Midwest Works
September 27: Joint Concert Lincoln MS, Park Ridge – Three Midwest pieces, Two non-Midwest pieces
October 24: Fall Concert – The three most difficult Midwest pieces, one or two super easy non-Midwest pieces

November 13: Fall Concert #2 – The easiest four Midwest pieces, maybe repeat anything that didn’t go well on the last two concerts.
December 18: Official Midwest Preview Concert – Complete Midwest program
December 22: Midwest Clinic Concert – Complete Midwest program

We have a couple other performances thrown in that aren’t directly related to our Midwest performance. These will provide a nice change of pace for the kids, especially in terms of repertoire.

It certainly feels like things will be very frantic early in the year, but I love a couple things about this model. I particularly like that by November 13 we’ll have performed everything we’re playing at Midwest at least once. Having five weeks to put the complete program together won’t feel as hurried. There will be enough pressure as we approach December 22 without having to worry about cramming in the preparations for the last tune or two.

I’ve been told several times that these four months are going to just fly by. There are times that I wonder if we’ll have the time to fix some of the issues that just take work and patience over time. Regardless, though, it’s nice to have finally started the preparations. I know our kids and I are going to work as hard as we possibly can over the next several months. We’ll see where that takes us!

(For topic suggestions or questions relating to our Midwest performance I can be contacted via email: cdestefano@skokie735.k12.il.us or through the contact page on our website.)

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