Concert Details!
The spring concert is almost here! May 15 will be the end of year concert for the 6th grade bands (beginning and continuing), 7th grade, and 8th grade bands. The concert starts at 6:30 and students need to report to the band room at 6:00pm to warm up. Students should bring their instrument, music, and a bottle of water if they would like. Dress for the concert is formal, as always, with white on top and black on bottom.
The jazz bands will not be performing on this concert, however they can still wear their all black. The final performance for Jazz I will be on May 17 at the Monarch Mingle from 5:30-6:00pm. Jazz I students need to report at 5:00 to get ready and set up for our performance. If you did not get a chance to see the big jazz concert, check out some of the pictures below to see our wonderful musicians hard at work!
If you have any questions or if I forgot any details, please email me (dan.pinkston@bvsd.org) and i’ll get back to you as soon as I can!
Thanks!
Jazz Festival pictures!
Here are some of the pics taken at our jazz festival with John Gunther and the great musicians from the University of Colorado! This was a great experience for the kids and they played well, had a good time doing it, and put on an incredible concert at the end of the evening. You can see them hard at work here during the afternoon rehearsals!
Love is Here to Stay
Hey Jazz Band! This link should help you practice Love is Here to Stay to make sure it’s beautifully polished for tomorrow night. If the link doesn’t work, go to jwpepper.com, search “love is here to stay baker” (baker is the arranger, so don’t forget his name) and then click play on the audio track! It’s a great thing to play along with and will really help you match the style of a piece of this difficulty.
Practice Card
These practice cards are due the last day of every week with the final card due May 11. You can get a hard copy on my classroom door or you can print them out yourself!
CU Summer Music Academy!
Sent to me in an email from CU – their summer music programs are always very high quality! I highly encourage any and all of you to check these opportunities out!
The College of Music at the University of Colorado Boulder is excited about our upcoming CU Summer Music Academy.
The academy is an opportunity for exciting opportunity for high school and middle school band, orchestra and jazz musicians from Colorado and around the country to receive world-class instruction in a one-week summer session.
There will be three separate one-week academies for the following areas: Middle School Band & Orchestra, High School Band & Orchestra, and Middle/High School Jazz.
Auditions for enrollment are required ONLY for the High School Band & Orchestra Academy. This is due to needs regarding instrumentation, as well as a focus on create chamber experiences in addition to large ensemble. The audition deadline has been extended to March 15. Auditions are to be submitted online.
The Middle School Band/Orchestra and the Middle/High School Jazz academies areas are open to all eligible students.
Academy Faculty will include members of the CU Music Faculty as well as guest artists, including Jazz Artist-in-Residence, Gene Parker (Saxophones, Piano, Vibes, Latin Percussion)
For more information visit: http://music.colorado.edu/summermusicacademy
6th grade concert details!
Here’s the quick and easy information sheet about the 6th grade festival on February 29! Please leave any questions on the comments or email me at dan.pinkston@bvsd.org
Just click the link below for the letter that was sent home with your child on 2/16.
Also, yes the 7:00 concert time is a change from the 6:30 originally in the band handbook. Due to a conflict with the basketball schedule and our necessary rehearsal for the area 6th grade festival, the time was pushed back 30 minutes to allow time to assure the best concert possible.
Variations on Scarborough Fair
Here’s a recording of Variations on Scarborough Fair to help you practice your parts as performed by the North Texas Wind Symphony.
Variations on Scarborough Fair
Winter on Emerald Bay and Shenandoah recordings will be forthcoming, but here’s a fun start.
Jazz Band Wednesday, January 3
Yes! There is Jazz Band on January 3! Be there bright and early (7:45!) and be ready to read some new tunes! If you see this in time, please help to call (read: text) your friends and fellow jazz band members so that we can get critical mass present! 
2011-2012 Marching Band Schedule
8th grade families,
With so many vacations being booked in the early part of the year, Ms. Church and I like to be as proactive as possible in getting the calendar out to you. This one is not 100% complete, but the dates and times listed are accurate. Students need to be at one of the two mini camps and attendance at band camp is MANDATORY. This is when we learn a huge chunk of our show and missing any part of these two weeks leads to a lot of playing “catch-up” to the rest of the band. If you are in town, you also need to come to the monday night reherasals every Monday over summer break. On Monday nights through the summer, we work on musical skills, show music, and the fine art of having fun with crazy band kids.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, musings, curiosities, or other feelings you would like to share, please email me. (dan.pinkston@bvsd.org) I can’t tell you enough how incredible the kids in the marching band are. You can’t buy better friends for your child. Not only are they polite and respectful, they also have an incredible work ethic, are very mature, and are generally just fun kids to be around. That, and the music is pretty sweet. If you’re on the fence, i advise you to give it a try for your freshman year. Our return rate usually hovers right around 98%, so that speaks to how incredible of an experience it is for the students. Looking at it on paper it seems like it may be quite a bit of a committment, but if you ask any of the kids in it they’ll agree that it’s worth the time they put in to it and they make some of their best friendships within the group.
The schedule is as follows:
Tentative Marching Band Schedule 2012
May 21st 6-9 FIRST Music rehearsal!!
June 4, 11, 18, and 25: Monday Night Rehearsals
June 14th-15th 8-1 Mini Camp
July 4th parade
July 12-13 Mini-Camp 8-1
July 2, 9, 16, 23 Monday Night Rehearsals
July 30-Aug 10 Band Camp 8-4
Oct 12 8-3
Every Monday and Wednesday Aug 15 –Oct 26 6-9 p.m.
Every Saturday Aug 16, 25, Sept 1, 8, 15 : 8 am -3:30pm
Every Saturday Sept 22,29,Oct 13, 20 8am – 11:30 pm. (show days include prelims and finals performances)
Concert Recordings!
Here are all of the recordings from the Fall 2011 band concert! Enjoy!
If you want to have your very own copy of these recordings, just send a check for $1,000,000 dollars to… oh wait. It’s a lot easier than that! Just right click the link and select “download linked file as” or whatever your equivalent may be and it’s all yours!
