The Final Week

As we started this whole process, I remember a ton of people telling me how fast the four months would go. In spite of the fact that I believed them, I’m still stunned by how they have just flown by. As I left school Friday afternoon, it felt like it was time. The kids and I are ready to get onto new repertoire, and while we’ll still try to hammer out more details in the final week, and hide some problems, the music won’t get much better now! I imagine we’ll spend a good portion of the week on fundamentals, unless we have significant issues during our pre-conference performance.

The last few weeks of preparation have been just great. I credit most of it to the work Bruce Pearson did with the kids when he was in preparing for his Clinic Session. This is going to be an outstanding and well thought out session on teaching young students how to play expressively (Tuesday 2:00 & Thursday 10:15). I wish we had a little more time to devote to the material we’ll be playing, but we’ll do some more this week. Aside from that, however, Mr. Pearson’s work was fantastic. Within five minutes of starting with them, any reservation I had about devoting time away from our Midwest repertoire was gone. It was exactly what we needed: a short break from the music, while strictly focusing on getting better as musicians. That combined with our Midwest performance no longer seeming quite so distant and it’s been a different band.

They are playing as well, or better, than any band I’ve had at this point in the year. While I still wish the home practice was better, they have been extremely focused and have worked hard in rehearsals. I’m very proud of their work. It’s been a lot of fun choosing repertoire for the rest of the year. I think they’ll be able to do some really wonderful, challenging stuff.

The kids gave a fantastic performance at our school’s Winter Concert on December 7. The kids played particularly well at the early performance for the whole school. We were also fortunate that the concert ran short so we were able to play almost our complete Midwest program.

This past week was spent focusing on our weakest pieces, our third mock run-through of the complete program (which went MUCH better than the first two), and with visits from our guest conductors.

So I’m very much looking forward to this week. I’m surprised that I’m not more nervous as I type this, maybe I’m numb to it all. Monday is our performance at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts. We’ve been promoting the concert heavily in the community, so I’m optimistic for a good turnout. This concert will be an exact mirror of our performance at Midwest…short introductions at the beginning, some announcements/recognition before the last number. Fortunately each of our guest conductors will be there as well, and Mark Custom Recording will be there to record us. That recording will be crucial to my planning for our last couple of rehearsals.

A downloadable copy of our program for Monday’s concert is available here.

(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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