Sunday evening, the last of the long, hot, 4th of July weekend, a couple friends from our community band and I were lucky enough to attend a Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert held outside at Meadowbrook Hall.
A few minutes before I left home to meet them for a quick dinner before the concert, the skies opened up and rain poured down. It was the first rain all weekend. I was discouraged, but figured at least we’d have a nice meal together and we’d see about the music later.
But even as I walked out to the car it began to clear.
So it was with high hopes and a bit of excitement that we arrived at the venue and found a place to sit in the grass high on the hill overlooking the stage. Of course just as we began to settle in the rain began again.
But once again it blew right through, and with a few gusts of wind the sky began to brighten. Then the music began.
What a wonderful evening! The crowd was happy and appreciative. The weather cooperated. The music was, of course, wonderful. Celebrating John Williams, it was filled with the scores of his many works and as the conductor talked about each piece you could hear the audience anticipate which one would be played next.
We were usually right.
As I listened I thought about Shelley, our community band music director who passed away this past February. She would have loved this concert. What’s not to love? The Detroit Symphony, a group she had season tickets for, a beautiful summer night, families enjoying the music, a beautiful sky overhead, and John Williams.
Perfect.
Toward the end of the program a lesser known score was played, the theme from Far and Away. The movie starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and the music starts off similar to a lot of his movie scores, fast and furious. But the last minute of the 3 minute piece, those last moments, those are sweet.
I smiled because in those moments, with fireflies twinkling and the music soaring into the evening sky, I knew somewhere maybe right overhead and not so far and away, Shelley was smiling too.
And I bet, in fact I’m 100% sure, she enjoyed the concert just as much as we did.
Our community band’s season is coming to an end. We play the last concert this coming Friday, only a few days away, and this one is special. This concert is in memory of Shelley Roland, the music director of our band, who led us for almost two decades. This special woman who was our leader, mentor, and friend died in February after fighting cancer for nine years. So the pieces chosen for this last concert all have some connection to Shelley.
The band sounds great. We’re especially large for this event, because many musicians, friends and past students of hers, have joined us to play music in her honor. I think every section of the band has an extra person or two. And because Shelley was a clarinet player and a teacher, our section went from the four clarinets we had at the last concert to a total of eleven for this one.
All of this is really wonderful, but as we were rehearsing a particular piece last night I suddenly realized why we were playing it and my eyes filled with tears. I need to get the tears under control before Friday night, because I can attest that it’s impossible to play a clarinet and cry at the same time.
Please think about us this Friday evening. It’s going to be hard but beautiful and I can’t think of a better way to honor her memory.
But darn, I better remember to pack my pockets with kleenex.
Last Saturday evening I and some of my fellow Clarkston Community Band members, along with a few hundred other people, attended the Southeastern Michigan Wind Ensemble (SEMWE) spring concert. The talent in this group is stunning, it’s members are mostly current and retired music directors. People who have devoted their entire lives to making and teaching music.
I try not to miss any of their concerts, and I’m certainly glad I went to this one.
It turns out they were honoring two of their group who have passed away, Jennifer Ginther who suddenly died last December, and the other our own CCB music director who died in February of this year. Here we go, I thought, sitting out in the audience, time to focus on not crying.
But their choice of music didn’t make me to cry, not outright anyway. It was beautiful, just the kind of music Shelley would program herself. The first piece, Resplendent Glory by Rossano Galante was so very beautiful and, I think, my favorite of the evening. The link above wasn’t from Saturday’s performance, but it gives you an idea of the uplifting piece that made me smile even though I was sad.
I enjoyed all of the music at Saturday night’s concert, but especially a piece played by one of the middle school teachers, Ross Taylor, on the marimba. He was amazing. You’d have enjoyed it too, Concerto No.2 for Marimba and the Wind Orchestra, Movement 3, by David Gillingham. I could only find movement #1 on YouTube, but you’ll enjoy that movement too, and it’s similar to what we heard.
What a treat! We applauded and applauded…and then we applauded some more when he finished. The poor guy had a hard time getting off the stage, we just kept applauding.
In fact the whole concert was a treat. When I left the auditorium after the program I was still missing my friend, our music director, but I was oh so grateful to have spent time in the presence of other people who also loved her, people making music to honor her and Jennifer from a place deep inside each of their hearts.
Then, leaving the building close to 9:00 p.m., we all gasped in awe. The sky was a brilliant pink and gold. I immediately knew, at least for me, that sky was Shelley saying “Good job! I enjoyed it!” I can hear her voice and see her big, beautiful smile.
I’ve been worried for weeks. I even had a nightmare about, of all things, spaghetti. Whenever I expressed my concerns, which was often, I was assured that things usually work out.
Setting up
The thing I was worried about was the Clarkston Community Band’s concert this last Friday evening. You all know I’m a natural worrier and I generally hold pre-concert jitters inside as the performance time approaches.
But this was different because we weren’t just responsible for the music. This time we were attempting our very first fundraiser, and feeding 100+ people a spaghetti dinner while we were playing music from around the world.
Before the music started
And so I imagined the worst case situations. Most of which revolved around food and getting said food to the venue, and cooked and presented to our guests while most of us were busy, dressed in our concert blacks, playing music.
You know…playing the fiddle while Rome burned. But that’s a different story.
Perusing the silent auction
Many of the band members arrived at 4 to help set up the venue, a large room, essentially a gym, at a local church. The kitchen was at one end of the room, and we arranged the other end as a concert stage. In between we set up 16 round tables, eight chairs to a table, complete with table cloths, a candle and a flowering plant.
So much to do.
By 5 almost the entire band had arrived, many people taking time off from work to settle into our role as hosts and musicians. We tested the sound as we warmed up, tuned, played a few difficult transitions. Surprisingly, in such a large room filled with hard surfaces bouncing the sound around, we were pleased by what we heard.
The food was being warmed in the kitchen, the room looked great, the musicians were relaxed. I started to let my shoulders down just a bit.
Warming up
The doors opened at 6 and there was a line of people waiting to get in! As we greeted our guests I finally let the nightmares go. Regardless of how the spaghetti got from the kitchen to the table we were ready. It was, as everyone had assured me, going to work out.
And it did.
The place was packed, every seat filled and more people sitting along the sides. The music was fun, our guests were engaged, the atmosphere was casual, spaghetti and meatballs eventually made it out to the tables and at the end everybody ate cake.
The trumpets playing a bit of German polka.
I’m so proud of our group. A couple weeks before we had only sold 14 tickets, had no volunteers for essential duties and some of the music was pretty rough.
The saxophones playing some jazz.
But, as always, we pulled together. Everybody pitched in, hauled tables and chairs, set up the silent auction tables, unloaded percussion from the box truck, heated food, delivered meatballs to the tables, played music, cleaned the kitchen, packed up percussion, put away tables and chairs, emptied the trash and smiled all the way through.
And everybody had a good time
And our 100+ guests smiled, too, as they walked out into the darkened parking lot, humming, I’m sure, bits of Funiculi, Funicula or Hey Jude, or Live and Let Die, or the Stars and Stripes.
In fact I’m still humming some of that myself.
PS: I just listened to the sound recording of the concert. Man, that was a fun one. And listening to the audience sing Hey Jude when the band cut out…that just made my heart smile. What a good time.
I don’t remember when I started playing with the local community band. And when I joined I certainly didn’t expect to still be playing years (maybe more than15 years!) later or how lucky I’d be to form a friendship with the band’s music director.
But it was easy, she was a clarinet player as well as a band director in the public schools. We were similar ages, and had lots of the same interests. She gave me tickets to the Detroit Symphony, took me and others to the Detroit Institute of Art to see the Van Gogh show, invited me over to play with her beloved kitties, made meals for my husband and me when we got Covid the first time.
She gave of herself in ways too numerous to mention. As she did with so many others.
In recent years Shelley has fought cancer, going to treatments and tests but still coming, every Tuesday night, to rehearse a band that on it’s best days can be a handful. We are something of an island for misfit musicians, all with different sets of skills, different levels of commitment, but each of us 100% lovers of making music. When we get it right it is so right, and when we fail, well, we fail spectacularly.
And still she came, every Tuesday night. Arriving early, she was the last one to leave.
At our October concert, “Three Women and a Podium”
When the cancer struck again it became harder for her. She had moved an hour away to be closer to family and her doctors. The trip back to be with us was sometimes long, sometimes impossible. Still, she persisted. When necessary other dedicated music directors stepped in to give her a break.
But we always knew she’d be back. She wasn’t ready to give up her community band.
The last concert she conducted for us was this past October. By Christmas she didn’t have enough stamina to stand on the podium and keep us in line. I texted her after the Christmas concert, her favorite of each year, and gave her a report. We had done well, had a good crowd, we missed her, Santa said hello. She told me she was grieving the loss and missed us too.
She never came back.
Last week at rehearsal we learned she was in hospice at the family’s home. She was receiving visitors and cards and spending time with her grandchildren. This past Tuesday morning she died, her family surrounding her, and music playing.
Of course it was a Tuesday.
In Michigan’s UP on a 3 day trip, where it rained every single day.
Maybe she knew that we’d need each other, as one by one we heard the news. She knew, of course, that there is no better group of people to be with when you’re mourning your music director than the people with whom you share the music.
And so we went to rehearsal. Those of us that knew had a hard time walking into the building, into the band room, looking at the podium. Even though she hadn’t been physically there since last fall, it was still her podium. Those that hadn’t heard the news yet sat in stunned silence as it was announced.
The room was quiet for a moment and then people started sharing stories and we laughed a bit and teared up a bit. And then we did the best thing we could do for ourselves, and for her.
We made music. For a moment the music had stopped. But only for a moment.
Last week I wrote Shelley a letter, thanking her for being a friend, for her advice, for her musical support, for our travels together, for her generosity, for her time and her care. There are so many stories I could tell you about her, and I am just one of hundreds who have stories of her giving to them and their families.
I ended my letter to her by reminding her of the hundreds of students she had mentored over her 30+ years of teaching music in our public schools. Her legacy will go on forever through those students, many who have made sharing music their careers.
I told her she was the stone tossed into quiet water and the ripples she made are still spreading out into the universe. I told her I didn’t think any of us could have a bigger affect on the world than what she’d done with her talent and her love.
A subset of us, playing a pop-up concert during Covid in her neighborhood.
And I asked her if, after she gets settled and has her celestial band warmed up and in tune, if she might look around for a way to let us know she’s OK. I told her I knew she’d be OK, but it would be nice to know.
I expect to be hit over the head with something fantastically musical any day now. And I bet that first concert up there is going to be amazing.
There’s a lot going on in the world right now. Unrest across the globe, a different sort of unrest here at home in the US. Every evening I turn the news on with trepidation, afraid of what I will likely see and hear.
But once a week, on Tuesday night, I get to play music with a bunch of other folks in our local community band. It’s not always stress free. There’s the normal pressure to put together a quality concert, and finding time to practice at home so as not to waste the precious time we have together. And because I’m one of two band librarians there’s additional responsibility too.
But all of that worry and stress slides away when you’re actually making music at your concert. All the musicians show up dressed in concert black, the big, round sound we make together is beautiful, the audience is appreciative. Suddenly all that work becomes worthwhile.
Last night we kicked off our season with a combined concert. The community band played the first half, and the Stardusters dance band followed up, completing the evening.
It was a lot of fun.
Our audience wasn’t big, and I feel sad for those people that didn’t come out. They missed a wonderful evening of fun music and smiles. And donut holes and cider afterward.
To be honest the world could use more fun music and smiles. And I bet, if you’re anything like me, stressing over the state of world and national affairs, you could use some too. My advice is to google ‘fun stuff to do in my town’ and see what you can find. I bet there’s a community group putting together a play or a concert near you.
The holidays are coming, there’s almost certainly going to be live music galore. Make sure you don’t miss it. It’s good for the soul, it supports your local artists and musicians, and it’s definitely worth missing one evening of nightly news.
This morning I got to play music with some of the members of the Clarkston Community Band at our local Farmers’ Market. It was opening day at the market and the weather was perfect. Sunny and in the 70s with, at the beginning, no breeze to blow music around.
Ready to begin the next piece.
OK, so we were sight reading most of the music. And OK, we didn’t have all the instruments of a full band. And yes, we did dissolve into giggles in the middle of one piece of music we had optimistically thought we could pull off when it became obvious we weren’t going to make it to the end even remotely together.
Taking a break.
But hey, people stopped to listen, the Disney songs were a big hit with the little kids, and we got to spend a few more hours playing together at the end of our season.
You just can’t beat live music outside in the sunshine. I’d say it was a win for us and a win for people shopping the market on a beautiful Saturday morning.
It was busy around here last week. A steady stream of contractors and appointments filled our days. I had a rehearsal on Tuesday night and a concert on Friday evening. Husband had places to be and people to see too.
The calendar (paper, and hanging on a bulletin board in the back hall) daily squares looked black with scribbled appointments.
The middle school after the music.
Friday was particularly bad for me. I thought I was on edge because of the pending concert. There’s always things to worry about when a concert looms. Would we come in together on that one tricky entrance. Would we all end together, or were we supposed to fade out on that other difficult piece.
Friday we had two contractors working on things inside the house and two contractors working on stuff out in the yard. None of it went exactly as planned and I was stressed.
Friday was the last day of school and the students left messages in chalk on the sidewalk outside.
Even our concert venue was causing stress. We’d been booked at the local Jr. High which has a fine auditorium and where we’ve played many times. But at the last minute the school system told us we couldn’t perform there, as the school was going to be renovated, beginning on the very night we were to play!
We told them we only needed 2 hours, but we got bumped anyway.
Me too.
Our director, a retired middle school band director, got us approved to play at the middle school’s cafetorium. Yep. A cafeteria with a stage, probably similar to where most of us ate lunch growing up. I hadn’t played in a cafeteria since I was in 7th grade.
It didn’t feel promising.
“Please stop giving us the melody.”
But our group is resilient, and in the end it wasn’t half bad. The stage was acceptable, the dusty blue velvet curtain made a pretty OK band shell, the custodians had the lunch tables put away and 200 chairs set out.
And our audience showed up.
Our intrepid leader, retired Clarkston band director, Ms. Roland.
Most importantly, after my long week, it was cathartic to sit in the middle of a group of musicians and hear the music swell around me. Of course I lost my place a couple times when I was listening instead of concentrating. Or when I was letting my neck muscles relax and forgot to count.
I bet this is from a teacher.
But last night I listened to the recording and I’m pretty sure no one will be able to tell that one third clarinet didn’t play all her notes.
Our guest conductor, Dr. Klena from Oakland University.
Our concert was titled “Three Women and a Podium” and was filled with music composed by women. I was proud to be a part of that, and I enjoyed playing under the baton of each of our three wonderfully talented conductors.
Our Associate Conductor, Ms. Scheu, Director of Bands at Oakland Christian School.
On the drive home after the concert, the sun set in a most spectacular way. I stopped in a parking lot to watch. I thought about the week and the evening and the fact that I didn’t play everything.
And God smiled good night.
And I decided I was happy with what I did play and I was very grateful that I could, finally, exhale.
Be kind to yourself too.
I hope you all find your best way to let the stress of everyday life fall off your shoulders.
And if you’re somewhere nearby some of the Clarkston Community Band musician will be playing next Saturday at the opening of the Clarkston Farmers’ Market. I hope to see you there!
School’s out, the Farmers’ Market is open – – it’s officially summer!
Tuesday nights are band rehearsal nights. Tuesdays seem to come around so fast, especially if I haven’t practiced as much as I should.
Or at all.
This week I was moving slow and arrived later than usual for me, which still means 10 minutes before we start. Anyway, I had to park further away from the door and I was slogging my way slowly there, staring at my feet, so tired, so not wanting to be there, when I happened to glance up and see a young man, still in high school, waiting patiently for me as he held the door open.
Everything inside me smiled, and I sped up, apologizing for being slow that evening.
He just laughed and said, yea, sometimes it was hard to get off the sofa. And I agreed, but added, I’m always glad to get to play once I’m here. He grinned and agreed.
And, I suppose, that’s the way it is with a lot of things. Sometimes it’s hard to get motivated, even to do things you love. But once you start you’re always glad you did.
We’re working on Peace Dancer for our June 7th concert. Turn your volume up, then listen and enjoy.
Change Is Hard 