Part II of My School Year Reflections 2011-12

In November we opened our Winter Arts Concert with this performance from our middle school choir, their first public performance in over 5 years, which was the last time that there was a vocal program at SMS. I had originally given this medley to the choir just to sight-read and challenge them a little, since it really is a high school pops piece. Darn it if they didn't fall in love with the music straight away! So there was no choice but to use it in their fall concert:



I wish we could bottle all of this energy and save it for when they are older and lethargic in school!

Annual School Year Reflections 2011-12

I am so far behind in updates here, but I have good reasons: I was busy teaching! Indeed it was a good year, though filled with uncertainty and new experiences. There are always lots of things to gripe about in the workplace, and for certain in public education, but I won't use these pages to do that, because I'd only be repeating what is being said all over the media about funding, test scores, student achievement, job security ..... the list goes on.

Rather, I'd like to celebrate my students' achievements this year in my small musical world - and they were many. Our challenges were also many; in my high school vocal music program we lost one of our best senior choir classes in spring 2011 to graduation. These kids were motivated and will be destined for greatness. Many enrolled in collegiate music studies and had fine years as freshmen. So I knew that my vocalists had a hard act to follow. In addition, our jazz program also suffered key losses of high quality all-state type students due to graduation and the new, younger students enrolled I felt had a big challenge ahead of them. I felt that over all this would be a rebuilding year, and once in which I might just be rebuilding for the new high school on our district, since some of my remaining students would be transferring there in the fall of 2012-13.

There were other challenges for me as well. I accepted 6/5 time status because our middle school principal had a strong desire to start a choral program at her school, after a five plus year absence. None of the seven other teachers in our district wanted to take on this assignment, so I volunteered; the program was going to feed into my high school choir anyway, so why not? There were problems, of course. Since there was only one period that it could be offered, the class was huge (50 plus students), and grades 6-8 were lumped together. And the added work load and loss of a prep period was staggering, until I was able to manage it by starting my day at 5:30 am each day. I had a zero period class too, so I went from 7:15-3:00 daily, with break for lunch and short 20 minute respite before traveling over to the middle school campus at the end of the day. I never really valued prep periods that much until I no longer had one!

Because of this workload, I was fairly intense all year long. My students responded in kind, and so many great things transpired, including a successful re-launch of the SMS choir, a great mid-winter vocal show, a back-to-back Heritage Festival trip to Anaheim (I have never done back-to-back trips out of state before over two years), and rapid maturity of my jazz ensemble. Those students in particular were phenomenal. The expected weakness of the rhythm section turned into a strength, with two enormously talented seniors stepping up on guitar and bass.

The good news began with an early winter concert on November 18th, before Thanksgiving. My middle school group went crazy over a 15-minute Mamma Mia/Abba tribute that we had started working on in the fall, but we had no place for them to perform it except on our high school concert. It went over great with the high school audience and I was so happy for these young students, most of whom had never performed in public before. They capped off their year with a fine performance at the middle school's spring concert. The kids had matured so much since that November showing, musically, physically and emotionally. It is so rewarding to see kids grow so rapidly. It wasn't an easy year dealing with such a large class of first year middle school choir students, but by the end we were getting across what was essential for musical growth. Such a fine collection of great young voices! And so energetic too!

My high school choir seniors had requested a return trip to Anaheim in the spring for our advanced group, called Chorale. The balance of this group was a problem, with not enough quality male voices enrolled; there was no way they would achieve anything near the sound I felt they could achieve with out using some singers from our Mixed Choir, a lesser experienced class that met at a different time of day. It was that group which made the greatest strides.

Once both classes understood that only be working together would they get the results that everybody wanted, things went much better. Students did the work at home, stayed after school, worked in sectionals, and even organized rehearsals at home with kids who lived nearby to get the job done. The first indicator or things to come was our Broadway Revue show, "A Night to Remember", staged on February 3rd. Turnout was great, and I think we were all amazed at how smooth the show really went. Our seniors really took charge and our underclassmen were willing to be led. The end result was a great show. The box office was nice too; this was the catalyst for the funding needed to get back to Heritage in May 2012. A tune-up at the Eastern Arizona College Large Ensemble Festival yielded great results in April and confirmed that we were on the right track. We were pleased with the results in Anaheim, though I felt that they had sung better in the warm-up. Still a silver award in their category (30 other choirs) was not a bad showing!

Our jazz students had a year to remember too, performing well at its winter concert, a paid performance at the local Jazz For Fun event in Green Valley, the Chandler-Gilbert CC Jazz Festival, the ABODA Area Jazz Festival (in which it qualified for State), and the State Jazz Festival, earning a high score there. But it saved its best performance I thought for The Spring Arts Concert in our auditorium, bringing the house down.

I had thought that this band would have to settle for playing grade 2-3 charts this year, because I anticipated this to be a developing year. But I found quickly that this band loved and needed to be challenged. Consequently I was able to use much more difficult materiel, including some Mingus charts. They did a wonderful job on these numbers, and proved to be very teachable with respect to the specific jazz styled that were presented with each new chart. They did all that I could ask of them, despite being short-handed all year long in the trumpet section.

Here are some sounds and sights in video highlights that were posted on Youtube throughout the year:

Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza

Pizza in Chicago is an experience unto itself. Forget the bread-like pan pizzas that you can get from the chain pizza purveyors; only real Chicago-style pizza cuts it here!

So what is it? First there is the semantics; Chicago Pizza is either deep dish or stuffed pizza, based upon the Chicago restaurant you are visiting. At it's essence, deep-dish pizza is dough pulled up into a high-sided round pan, over olive oil and and cornmeal. The secret is that the dough, once pulled up the sides of the pan, is parbaked to give the dough greater spring. Then and only then are the toppings added, beginning with the cheese - healthy slices of mozzarella usually to cover the whole bottom of the pie. And now what is added is the tomato sauce, sausage, pepperoni, extra cheeses or veggies. Otherwise, you end up with a soggy pizza. Indeed the dough is almost fried in the oil and cornmeal coating, resulting in a crunch but thick crust. I think the crust is almost as good as the pie itself.

Stuffed pizza differs in that a second layer of dough is added to the pizza after the cheeses and toppings have been layered on. The second dough layer is then covered with tomato sauce and whatever else you have ordered. In the photo at the left you see a deep dish pizza from Uno's. The photo on the right is a stuffed pizza from Giordano's.

In either case, you end up with a savory, thick and gooey pizza that you must eat with a fork and knife. Brooklyn style roll-up pizza? Fugettabboutit! If you see anybody rolling the pizza up (and if you can, well you have a mouth way too big and worthy of a Guinness Record), forgive them, for they know not what they do!

When in Chicago, most people gravitate to Uno's or Due's (sister restaurants) downtown, Giordano's, Lou Malnati's. Gino's East, Edwardo's or Connie's Pizza, but wherever you go, you will be assured of a taste experience that is so Chicago - big, bold and brassy! And for you misplaced Chicagoans needing that fix, Giordano's and Lou Malnati's will even ship overnight via Fedex - for a hefty price of course. But better still, AJ's here is Tucson carries a Gino's East Deep Dish Pizza right in their frozen pizza section:



Whatever choice you make, including vacationing in the Windy City, Bon Appetit!

Shrimp In Paper

Yesterday I was looking for something to do with some shrimp that we had in the freezer for quite some time and remembered a recipe that I saw on Emeril Lagasse's new Fresh Food Fast television show a few weeks ago. It uses simple ingredients and we always have these things on hand in the vegetable crisper and in pantry, so the decision was easy. It’s easy, Asian inspired and goes great with a nice, light rice pilaf and a crisp white wine. It turned out great!

Ingredients (per serving)

1 tsp canola oil

1 cup broccoli florets

1 cup julienned carrots

1 small shallot, peeled and chopped

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp soy sauce

freshly ground black pepper

6 (16 to 20 count) shrimp, shelled, deveined

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F

Brush an 18 inch long sheet of parchment paper with the canola oil. Working on half the the paper, layer the broccoli, carrots, shallots and the the shrimp on the paper and drizzle with the sou sauce, sesame oil and pepper. Fold the parchment paper over until the ends meet and then fold the edges together repeatedly, 4 or 5 times, creasing it with each fold to make an airtight seal.

Place the pouch on a baking sheet and place on the center rack of ghe oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until the pouches (if multiple servings prepared) are puffed up. Remove from the pan and open carefully. There were will a considerable amount of hot steam escaping. Serve immediately.

Re-Discovering Beethoven

I have always loved the music of Beethoven; its power, energy, and level of sophistication amaze and mesmerize me. No matter how many times I hear it there is always something new to discover in a re-hearing of the 3rd Symphony for example, or some new perspective to be gained from the string quartets that one had not heard before.

Great music should be this way; each new hearing of a work should enable an active listener to pull back a new musical layer, or view the entire work from an entirely new angle. It is said that Beethoven probably conceived his works as a 3D structure. Indeed, in some of his writings on his music he talked of the breadth and depth of his compositions, which would suggest this three dimensional perspective.

I am currently in a re-discovery phase, which I go through from time to time. I was thinking on this idea of three-dimensional thinking, and have been re-reading Thayer’s Life of Beethoven. Concurrent with that I have given some thought to Beethoven’s third period, in which his music became far more introspective, personal and contrapuntal. Beethoven by then was almost completely deaf and seemingly more accepting of the situation (as opposed to the anguished time in his early thirties when he lived in fear of society discovering his deafness), had turned to the music of Handel and Bach for sources of inspiration as he completely revised his compositional style.

What set Beethoven aside from his great predecessors Haydn and Mozart was his utter unwillingness to repeat himself. It was as if he approached every new composition with the question “What have I done in this genre before and how can I make it fundamentally different?” That philosophy indeed did result in distinctive works that are very different from each other in many ways. Take a look at the 9 symphonies. Each exists in its own world, and is as individual as can be. Haydn and Mozart, who wrote 140 plus symphonies between them, achieved such symphonic individuality only in their very last symphonies.

So back to this thought of viewing Beethoven’s music as a three dimensional object. I was listening to his Grosse Fuge, Op 133 the other day. This work is truly one of the most perplexing of his late period, not at all understood by his contemporaries and probably still enigmatic to listeners even today. I’ve heard it several times, recognizing the musical language Beethoven employed was a direct link to the Romantic era and beyond, yet I’ve not fully appreciated all of those musical layers I mentioned earlier.

The work is abtract, dense and a challenge even to modern performers. One must have wondered what musicians of the day thought about performing it. Donald Grout, in his History of Western Music, points to the first section of this work, along with a section of the finale of the 9th Symphony and portions of the Missa Solemnis, all representative works from this last period, which require almost a “miracle” for them to “sound” in performance.

Someone recently produced a computer driven animation of the Grosse Fuge and posted it on Youtube. As I watched the animation while listening to the music I realized how cool this treatment really was, because I could see as well as hear just how complex and yet sublime Beethoven’s late style was. It’s a shame the posting does not credit the outstanding performers or the recording used. Some of the commentary is from contemporaries of the composer:

Glimpses Of The Past

A few years ago a retired photographer in Green Valley, Arizona presented me with some black and white professional photos that he had taken of several jazz greats in the 1950's when they were at the height of their fame. Among the legends were shots Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Gene Krupa and Nat King Cole among others. Here are a few reproductions of the great work of Mr. Joseph Perillo:

Teacher Pride

I always seem to have the most motivated students in my vocal ensemble classes. They work hard, take great pride in their performances and are generally excellent self-starters. Take this week, for example. We developed a concept for a show featuring music from screen and stage mostly from the 1970's forward called "Showtime! - Memories Past and Present". Naturally we had to include music from Grease, the Disney shows, Rent and Glee.

So what did they do? After I taught them the basic music styles and concepts to make the performances valid, as well as the parts, the students went about designing their own dances and staging for the big medleys and basically ran their own rehearsals, including some at students' homes, on weekends. They also produced the show, working on their own costumes, props, and lighting designs.

All of this we incorporated into several after school rehearsals, with one student (who chiefly designed the choreography) serving as director. I envisioned this to be a student run project from the beginning and it worked very well. To be sure, there were a few spots that were under-rehearsed, but that is part and parcel with a school program in which time is at a premium. We were also dealing with the fact that their were two classes involved, and finding rehearsal time together was a real challenge with after school work schedules and sports practices. Still, they got it done, and raised a little cash too! So yes, I am very proud of them this Monday after!

What's next? Spring concert season begins, so I'll pick up the baton and start rehearsing madrigals with my vocalists. Fun!