Week 10 update from November 23, 2017

Greetings Capital Crescendos,

Theme of the Week: Top to bottom. We are now at the stage where we are working on our pieces from top to bottom to focus on their flow and overall musicality, including dynamics and variations in tempo. Remember to play the pieces all the way through, including counting through rests. Try playing the pieces while listening to the musical links.

Administration and Social:

Our end of session concert is on December 10th at 2:00PM at Brookfield High School. Make sure to let your friends and family know so they can get it on their calendars. We’ll find out what pieces we’ll be playing next week. A big THANK YOU to Sandy (alto sax) and Jacques (tuba) for volunteering to help with the stage set up. Dress code for the concert will be all black. We will discuss if we want to add a splash of colour.

Our community concert will take place on December 14 in the afternoon at Woodroffe Elementary School – for possibly our largest and most energetic audience ever. The school is located next door to Woodroffe United Church at 235 Woodroffe Avenue, an easy walk from our rehearsal location. We understand children from junior kindergarten to grade six will be invited. Our repertoire will include some of the pieces we are working on now as well as pieces from Broadway Favorites and possibly some seasonal favourites.

Our own Sheila, on flute, and Lucile Brais Hildesheim, on harp, released a marvellous CD last week – When Winter Comes. A few more copies of the CD will be available for sale next week at our rehearsal. ($15.00)

Thank you to Kathryn (French horn), Brenda (percussion), Kim (flute), Helene (clarinet) and Jackie (oboe) for making our movie/pizza/beer afternoon a great success.

This Week’s Rehearsal

We lead off rehearsal with the E♭ concert scale with various rhythms followed by lines 87 and 90 on page 18 of Tradition of Excellence. We then worked on You Must Know which we’ll play at our community concert. Since we are now playing this piece at close to the same tempo as the recording, try playing along with the recording to internalize the rhythms. Next we played Edelweiss. Sheila asked that we mark a fermata at bar 68 and note the ritardando in the second last bar. Next we worked on all three movements of A French-Canadian Suite. It’s a good idea to review the road map before starting as both the first and third movements have repeats. We then played Angel before our break and worked on Hail the Conquering Hero when we returned. We then turned to Riu, Riu, Chiu and worked on the challenging sixteenth notes in section G, followed by West Side Story in anticipation of our movie afternoon.

Next Week’s Rehearsal

We’ll start with sectionals next week. Make sure to ask any outstanding questions you may have about the music.

Important Dates

Thursday November 30, 2017: Last sectionals
Sunday December 10 at 2:00PM: ONHB seasonal concert at Brookfield High School

Thursday December 14 in the afternoon: Community concert at Woodroffe Elementary School

Celebrating My Three Best Friends

West Side Story

Hail the Conquering Hero

You Must Know

Angel

Riu, Riu, Chiu