Our community band holiday concert is this Thursday. Yes, the day after tomorrow, and before Thanksgiving. It’s never happened like this before.
We’ve only had 4 weeks of rehearsals to prepare, but it’s Christmas music, much of it we’ve played before. It will be fine. In fact, it might just be the perfect way to kick the holiday season off!
So…if you’re in the area, and would enjoy some uplifting music to kick start your holiday season…come on over to the Clarkston High School this Thursday evening, 7:00 p.m. It’s free.
You can have your picture taken with the authentic Santa, and we’ll have cookies afterward too! I personally don’t think you can have a legitimate holiday season until you’ve heard “Christmas Festival” by Leroy Anderson live and in person.
And Santa himself will be directing “Sleigh Ride.” That alone should make you want to be there.
Happy Holidays, everybody! Christmas music, then Thanksgiving. It’s always good to mix things up. Keeps us on our toes!
My mom used to say she wished the radio stations continued to play Christmas music after Christmas day. Back then you had to be in the same room as the radio in order to hear and she didn’t have time to listen before Christmas morning. She had four kids to shop and wrap for and a big holiday dinner to prepare.
She didn’t have time to enjoy the season until it was over.
The Clarkston Community Band, pictures from the audience perspective taken by my husband.
I wish she could have attended the concert our Clarkston Community Band played last Friday evening. Pretty lights and lush music shaped our theme of “Let there be Peace.”
“Bugler’s’Holidayby Leroy Anderson
I don’t think there’s a better way to get in the spirit of the season than to go to a live concert, right in your own community, performed by your friends and neighbors. The musicians might not be professionals (though sometimes they are) and the performance might not be perfect (though sometimes it is) but the spirit is real and the motivation is pure.
Friday night songs like “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, “White Christmas” and “I’ll be Home for Christmas” got us all into the right mood. When the audience sang along on a medley of Christmas carols I had to stop playing for a moment and just listen to all those voices joined together.
Pure magic.
Santa waits in the wings
Yep, Friday night we filled that auditorium with love. Toward the end of the show lots of children came up on stage to ring jingle bells as we played “Here Comes Santa Claus” in the hope they could convince Santa to stop in for a visit. These kids were very convincing, and Santa showed up right on cue. Their faces, when they realized he was standing right behind them, were priceless.
More magic.
Excitement builds as they hope for the big guy to arrive.
And then Santa conducted our last piece of music, “Sleigh Ride,” because it’ can’t be a holiday concert without a ride through the snow behind prancing horses, even if it’s all only in our imaginations.
A perfect ending to a perfect evening.
Friday night we all came together for a moment of celebration and peace, even knowing the world is filled with unrest. We all left that night smiling and you can too. This season, check your local high school’s web page. There’s likely a holiday concert or two near you this very week. Please take time from your preparations to support those musicians. They’d love to see a full house and you’ll be glad you went.
I guarantee there will be magic bouncing off those walls.
I’m playing with our local community band again this season and we’re coming up on our first concert. This is not the first time we’ve played Danzon #2, nor the first time we woodwinds have been told to pretend we’re plucking a stringed instrument.
You know, that gentle, short little ping sound the strings make when they put the bow aside and pluck the strings with a finger tip.
All that quiet plunking at the beginning.
As I practice, trying to make that light sound on my clarinet, the reed and my tongue feeling heavy, I wonder. When was the last time a string player was asked to pretend to be a clarinet?
Aha. Didn’t think so.
Less plunking, more crazy fast stuff on page 2. With key signature stuff too.
Walktober update: So far we have 11 posts collected, with a few more in the works, including mine. Let’s see if we can get them all in by Monday November 6th. Let me know if you need more time than that! 🙂
PS: Enjoy the Danzon Piece, played by an orchestra with strings as it was probably meant to be. At 3:21 you’ll see an example of string plucking. But watch it all, it’s guaranteed to make you smile.
Our community band has been rehearsing since September for last night’s Christmas concert. It hasn’t been easy. As librarian I sit on the board and we met numerous times, over the long months when we couldn’t play together, to access the situation.
Getting ready.
When we finally could meet again it was under the strict rules of the school system whose buildings we use. Everyone needed to be masked, even when playing our instruments. The instruments themselves had to have bell covers. And our audience had to remain masked at all times too.
Last minute instructions.
This fall we polled our members, asking whether they felt comfortable playing together under these guidelines. About 50% of the band agreed to play. I agreed too, but with trepidation. I am still uneasy being around other people in a closed space. Even if we are all masked up.
A special guest arrives.
But we all tried to be careful, and it was so good to make music again. Even if we sounded a bit ragged, given all the parts weren’t covered. Even though we only had one poor lonely percussionist, and holiday music is full of percussion!
Some rehearsals made me wonder if we’d get our stuff together in time.
We were lucky to have some high school players come in at the last moment to help us. Lots of percussionists, three clarinetists, and several others helped fill in the holes and our sound filled out.
Sleigh Ride isn’t right unless Santa conducts.
And, as is usual in community bands, when everyone shows up for the concert we show up focused, and we played so much better last night than at any one of our rehearsals.
You wouldn’t have been able to tell, because we were wearing masks, but I think every one of us was grinning by the end.
Making music is magic. We are so lucky that we were able to do that last night.
Thanks to our guest conductor, Paul!
The audience gave us a standing ovation. I don’t know if they were just anxious to leave, or glad to hear live music again after such a long break.
I think I’ll just assume they were grinning behind their masks too.
I’m a lucky lady, I got to experience two big smiles jammed into one weekend. Plus we are experiencing beautiful weather, warm and sunny with the trees starting to turn color. The morning and evening light makes the trees just glow.
But that’s a different blog post.
My first smile of the weekend was Saturday evening when I got to play in a pop-up concert with some of my Clarkston Community Band mates and several professional musicians who came to fill holes in our orchestration.
The neighbors came out to listen to us play on their cul-de-sac.
We haven’t played together since early March. Many of us haven’t played at all since then, though most of us frantically practiced these past few days trying to get our lips back in shape. The professionals sightread the music and sounded wonderful. I was grateful to get to play with them.
Thankful for these guys coming to help us out.
It was a lovely night and we are reminded again why we play long after school ends. As our Director, Ms. Roland said, tonight we’re not talking about politics or bingewatching silly shows on TV, we’re not thinking about virusus or worried about the future.
ALl about the music.
Tonight it’s about the music. And what a relief that was.
Keeping us in time.
I hope the neighbors who came out of their homes, sat in lawn chairs and waited while we did a little rehearsing before we began, I hope they had as much fun as we did.
Making a big sound.
But I don’t see how they could have had more.
He’s played with us since he was a kid, now grown up and still making music.
Then this morning I did a virtual 5K with my friend Tami who lives in California. So that we could run/walk together she went out at 6 a.m. while it was still dark, and I waited until 9 am. here, an hour or more later than I would normally go out.
At the turn around point.
It was a compromise on both our parts because we wanted to motivate each other. Compromise works, I wish it was something that happened more in our world, but I’m not going there in this post.
Nope, this post is all about smiles. I hope you had something fun to do, or pretty to see, or beautiful to listen to this week.
As we march toward November we all need to remember to smile. And that’s as political as I’m going to get today.
Change Is Hard 