Welcome Back! We had a great trip to Disneyland this week. Sixty seven students, seven parents, two bus drivers, one administrator and myself had a great time and a valuable musical experience. We had great clinics in the recording studio on the Disney property which all of my classes will get to see Monday. Each ensemble worked with professional musicians in a studio environment learning what it's like to sight read and record. In the process, everyone learned valuable rehearsal tips that I look forward to bringing to our rehearsals. We also had strong performances on a professional stage with top notch performance production quality audio/ visual support. I am sure that the students and the parent chaperones would be happy to share the value of this experience with you- just ask! For more info, check out the blog posts from the trip. If you have pictures or video you'd like to share, please bring it in on USB or CD so that I can share that with everyone. Thanks to Mrs. Collins, Mrs. DiLeonardo, Mrs. Hubbard, Mrs. Shumway-Lipps, Mrs. Liebscher, Mr. & Mrs. Ricco and especially our AP of Curriculum and Instruction, Mrs. Richardson who filled a last minute void when she volunteered to join our trip just 15 hour before our departure! Thanks so much to each of these adults who gave up their time and money to help give our students a great trip!
The weekend before the trip, I was in Fresno at the California All-State Music Education Conference. While there, I saw performances from outstanding musicians of all ages that reminded me of how exciting and moving a performance can be. I also saw several workshops from the best educators around- and I look forward to bringing some of their ideas to the classroom to strengthen our programs at Pioneer. Congratulations to Brian Hubbard who was a member of the All-State bands and gave a wonderful performance. This is the first time that I know of that Pioneer has been represented at this level- congratulations Brian!
West Side Story is coming up in just 4 weeks! Those students involved in the production are going to get very busy this month, so please begin to plan ahead, look at long term projects and assignments and plan how to fit in all of the work that you are going to be expected to do in your various classes, and the practice time needed to make for a successful performance. Performances are 3/23-24, 28-31 at 7:00 pm. Tickets are already selling fast, so get yours here. Remember, this is a very difficult musical, and students are expected to perform at the highest levels to ensure a successful performance.
Jazz Band will be participating in a joint performance with the West Valley College Jazz Band on Friday, March 16 at 8:00 pm. We will have 75 comp tickets to share, but additional tickets will be available for purchase as well. We will be able to use all of their equipment, so students just need to bring their instruments and music. Jazz Band has also been hired to perform for the opening day of Almaden girls softball on Saturday morning, March 10 with a set at 10:30-11 and 12- 12:30. We will have to meet before this at school to load equipment and return after to unload. This is a paid gig!
In April, we will host a joint performance with our Jazz Band and Symphony and the Jazz Band and Chamber Strings from Castillero on Friday, April 27 at 7:00. This will be a great chance for our kids to work with and perform for the younger musicians. I hope for this to become an annual tradition- working together should help get more families connected to Pioneer and increase retention between schools.
On Saturday, April 28, we will be hosting an all day music festival at Pioneer for Music-In-the-Parks. I will be looking for parents to help in several key areas as well as many student volunteers. We'll have a few meetings during school with students and one evening meeting just before the event to make sure everyone will know what to expect and what to do.
If you can help with either of these April events, please contact me!
As you can see, while there is much going on we aren't under the high pressure of back to back to back performances that we have been under for a few months. I look forward to taking this time to really teach students to work towards the highest level of musical achievement. In music, we strive to achieve 100% accuracy in our performance- in virtually all other areas of life (academics, sports, etc.) that is unheard of. We will get to dive deeply into our music in the next weeks and learn what it takes to really become masters of our parts.
