Spring Arts Concert

Unfortunately I did not get video of the close of this concert last night - battery died - but what I did get was something to be pleased with. And the crowd appreciated our students' work. We also had two students debut a song they wrote as "make-up" for a missed jazz band performance in February. The tune was Latin jazz and they arranged it for a combo. That debut went very well:



Here Colton is the guitarist and Dylan is the trombone solo. Yes, that is me playing ham-handed piano. I am a bass trombonist by major.

A highlight of a night of highlights for me was the presentation of a scrap book from my chamber vocal ensemble, the Chorale on stage at the end of their performance. It was quite a surprise and an honor. The book contained pictures and memories of the recent Anaheim trip. I will always treasure that! It reminds me that teachers are rewarded in so many ways other than monetary. We know that our pay is nowhere close to what it should be, but if it were strictly about money there would be no teachers at all. We're there to shape the lives of young people!

Here are s few more video highlights just posted from last evening:





One of the many attributes of this senior class was their spirit of initiative. I have three senor singers who pushed very hard as freshmen to form a Soul band, specializing in Motown and other songs from from the 50's and 60's. These students would practice on their own time, since there was no class for this and assemble a repertoire of songs that they could sing with my jazz band's rhythm section. Rehearsals have been few and far between because I need the rhythm section during regular class time for music the band was working on.

However, I did find a way to assign sectionals on a few days a month for the horns and bring these girls in to practice. This year there has been very little time for that type practice so it has been a little hard. However, we did get together a couple of sessions to reprise these songs previous years. Wished there had been truly more time to polish, but as such, this went well: