That was cool
Apr. 24th, 2015 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennlkWednesday night, J and SR and I went down to Saline HS for a "collaboration concert" with the top bands from the Chelsea, Saline, and Dexter high schools. Saline has a really nice performance space -- it's much narrower and deeper than Chelsea's, with two balconies that wrap almost all the way around the house. It has very different acoustics, as one would expect. I haven't asked DB if it sounded different onstage -- I really should.
The ensembles were, as you might expect, quite good. It was very apparent that Chelsea is a smaller school than the other two (CHS is <900, DHS ~1200, SHS ~1800), as they were the weakest group on the program. They were by no means bad, it's just that Saline and Dexter are outstanding. Maestro Crutcher was the guest conductor, and directed each of the bands in a piece (he did Metroplex, Irish Tune from County Derry/Shepherd's Hey, and October). I was really impressed with the choice of Shepherd's Hey, as there's a lot of tempo changes, and doing it with a guest conductor is even trickier. (SR was a bit annoyed with Shepherd's Hey -- when she played it in HS, C wouldn't let her play the bassoon cues (she really wanted to), but this time around the tenor sax did. I don't think the current tenor player is that much better than SR was, but the bassoon section is much weaker now.)
In other news, I finally had to water the pond, although this time due to evaporation, not spillage. It's starting to look like spring out there -- the hyacinths and "wild" tulips are blooming, as is the blue-eyed grass and the starflower; and there's big tulip buds in a few places. It got cold again, though, so I've not been doing any garden work -- doing yard work in this cold weather is hard on all my creaky joints.
The ensembles were, as you might expect, quite good. It was very apparent that Chelsea is a smaller school than the other two (CHS is <900, DHS ~1200, SHS ~1800), as they were the weakest group on the program. They were by no means bad, it's just that Saline and Dexter are outstanding. Maestro Crutcher was the guest conductor, and directed each of the bands in a piece (he did Metroplex, Irish Tune from County Derry/Shepherd's Hey, and October). I was really impressed with the choice of Shepherd's Hey, as there's a lot of tempo changes, and doing it with a guest conductor is even trickier. (SR was a bit annoyed with Shepherd's Hey -- when she played it in HS, C wouldn't let her play the bassoon cues (she really wanted to), but this time around the tenor sax did. I don't think the current tenor player is that much better than SR was, but the bassoon section is much weaker now.)
In other news, I finally had to water the pond, although this time due to evaporation, not spillage. It's starting to look like spring out there -- the hyacinths and "wild" tulips are blooming, as is the blue-eyed grass and the starflower; and there's big tulip buds in a few places. It got cold again, though, so I've not been doing any garden work -- doing yard work in this cold weather is hard on all my creaky joints.
