27 March 2020

Until Further Notice...

Dear Fellow Musicians,

Although I consider our program essential (to our minds, and our souls!), we still do not fall within current guidelines. I wish I could say more than this, but because of these current guidelines, we will remain "canceled" until further notice. Still hoping for something wonderful to happen...

Keep a positive attitude, and practice your music, even if it's just for the sake of practicing! If anyone wants to share fingerings, bowings, or woodwind and brass things, or has questions for each other, I will happily be your go-between and send out your info to your section. If you want to make a video of your part for others to play along with, I'm happy to be the communicator to send that out as well. 

If it's a funny video, that would be even cooler! :)

I didn't realize how much I enjoyed running around facilitating this until it was suddenly shut down.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience. Good luck with all your current challenges! Josie has the rest of the unclaimed music right now (there isn't much), and she may contact you, or just send it to you... 

You are all awesome!

Julie

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20 March 2020

Rehearsal still canceled

Hello all ye awesome people! 

I hope if you get bored you're working on your music! We are hopeful that we'll play it eventually.

If things settle down in time, we'd like to explore putting together a summer workshop where we meet intensively for a week or less intensively for two weeks and put on the same concert we were planning for April.

This is just in its embryonic stage and will depend on lots of variables! 

If we decide to go forward with exploring this, we will send out a detailed survey to figure out what dates might work etc.

In the meantime, I think you are awesome! Reach out safely to one another, and be supportive of all those around you! 

Musically yours,

Julie and Mr Dunn, Andrew, and Heather

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13 March 2020

Going Forward - Rehearsal Canceled for Tomorrow

Greetings!
The symphony board met last night and a very difficult decision was made. We will be suspending rehearsal this weekend, and will continue forward on a week-by-week basis. Please continue to read my very exciting emails to keep up with this "rapidly changing situation". 

The All-Star Concert that several of our students are involved in has been canceled for next week (but not their mentoring sessions this week), along with everything taking place at Abravanel Hall at least through March 28. I'm sure you've also heard about universities, the NBA, March Madness, and Disney shutting down. (All I can say is it's surreal. We are not afraid; we are just doing our part to contain the virus.)

Concert Date - also a changing situation
Likewise, the Box Elder High School Auditorium has been closed to any event involving the public, until further notice. Our April 23rd concert is included in that category, and when they decide to open the auditorium again, we may be facing a change of date! Please be aware of this and we will do our best to make sure this final concert happens, if at all possible!

Come Get Your Music
In the meantime, if you missed rehearsal last week and didn't get your new music, let's arrange to get it to you! You are welcome to pick it up, or I can even mail it to you -- good old snail mail! I will work through contacting each individual and making arrangements, but it would be even better if you reach out to me first. Let's at least act like this is going to happen and we're going to be able to put on our final concert. 

Our pieces are still the same, Conus concerto, Star Wars Through the Years (talk about some wicked rhythms!), Salute to Broadway (this will now be the combined piece with Chamber), and Lord of the Dance. If you are disappointed that there is not enough "classical" music in this program, think again. We are up for a challenge, especially with the rapidly changing situation. 

Going Forward
Thank you all for your patience and especially for your awesomeness! Also, let us know if you do get sick and if you have the virus. That could also affect how soon we meet again.

Have a lovely weekend! And practice that music ... if you have it!

Julie, Mr Dunn, the board

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06 March 2020

This Saturday will be different, but the same

Greetings, all ye earthlings! :)

Here are several reasons this Saturday will be different:

We are handing out new music (see below), and collecting old music (Mars, Jupiter, Narnia, anything else you still haven't turned in from your folders). Bring your folders! If you ended up with extra music after Abravanel Hall and the craziness, bring that too! A couple people had missing music after the chaos.

There will be no sectionals. We are reading new music and getting a feel for what we are planning to learn for our April 23rd concert.

We will discuss our performance at Abravanel Hall.

There will be some seating changes, especially in the strings. It's time to mix things up a bit! Look for your card to be in a different place!

We will listen to clips from the music we will be playing. For a sneak preview, here's what we're handing out:

Conus Violin Concerto - Natalie Nef's piece (This will have a large cut in it - like 300 measures - so we're not playing the whole thing)

Salute to Broadway - for the old people in the audience! Your grandparents will love it!

Star Wars Through the Years - An official recording of this is not yet available, although there's one online called the Star Wars Saga with the same sequence of music, albeit for band. So we might have to wait until tomorrow to hear it for real! 

Lord of the Dance Hardiman arr Moore (to combine with Chamber) This recording has weird beeps in it because it's a sample, and then fades out half way through. Ugh. Here is a short clip of the end of Lord of the Dance when we performed it in 2014.  There are other (likely illegal) videos of it on Youtube as well.

Here are the reasons this Saturday will just be business as usual:

Doors open at 8 am, lock again at 11:30. Come help with setup! And please don't prop the door open unless you're going to unprop it too!

Rehearsal runs from 8:30 to 11:00. 

Thanks again for all the people who made our performance at Abravanel Hall come together! We are proud of you!

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01 March 2020

Last Minute Details for Abravanel Hall

If you need to read over the info again (which you should all do tonight!) here is the page with all the info. Below, I've tried to answer all the questions people have asked me separately.

Clothing
Wear your concert black all day. Just wear it. I know. I hear ya. Wear it anyway. 

Food
If you bring food, make it all disposable, and only bring water to drink. NO eating in the auditorium!

Call time
Arrival deadline for those not coming to the full session is at least 15 minutes  BEFORE we go to the green room (that's after you find parking!). Our green room time is 3 pm, and our performance time is 3:30 pm. Our students who perform in Ogden Youth will walk around the back of the stage and re-enter the stage for the Ogden Youth performance at 4:00. If we finish our pictures before they are finished performing, be sure to only walk in between numbers, and sit quietly while they finish. Don't try to pack up your instrument until after their performance is over!

Cellos on the bus
On the bus, we have enough room on the bus that we will not be taking a separate van with cellos. Each person bringing a cello will have a seat for the cello on the bus. We are also working out hauling two basses in a van for the two people bringing basses and riding the bus. Small instruments can also go on the bus, and large brass instruments can go in the storage under the bus.

Bus Stops & The Wonderful Mom on the Bus
Please be at your bus location (if you're riding the bus) early. Ms Jenn Dabb (Tanner the horn player's mom) will be riding the bus and checking people off as they get on. If you are curious about where the bus is (It's hard to tell what time it's going to be places), here is her number - 435.730.1876.

Re=Read the Info!
See you all down there! Be sure to re-read the info for tomorrow (yes, I'm making you re-read it and here's the link to the PDF if you don't want the link to the webpage which is above) so that you know where we are sitting and where our large instruments go and where our cases go. The requirements are from the fire marshall. It makes no difference to me if other groups follow the rules, but we will follow the rules. Fill the rows, like walk all the way to the middle and the end of the row, and put your cases in front of you.

Remind
If you do not receive texts from me through remind, you'll want to sign up tonight since tomorrow the only way I will have to contact all of you at once is through that. It comes as a text from a funny phone number - 605-370-5906. I've sent out a couple dozen this year, and if you haven't received any, text "@nuys" (without the quotation marks) to 81010. Then you will receive messages if I need to send them ( for instance, last year our seating rows changed at the last moment... I sent a remind for that)

Audience
Spectators are welcome at Abravanel Hall! There are designated rows for them on the info sheet (linked at the top of this email). There is NO CHARGE. Admission is FREE. You can just attend our time slot, but you should plan to be early since sometimes the festival runs early. 

See you all tomorrow! Read the info!

And travel safely!

Julie

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