I played twice with the Yakima Symphony in late June, which was a real treat. The first concert was the all-John Williams concert mentioned before, playing a lot of my favorite music from him. This included "Flight to Neverland" from the movie Hook (I really loved this one), "Adventures on Earth" from E.T., a tune called "The Olympic Spirit" from the 1988 Olympics broadcast, and of course, music prevalent on many John Williams concerts (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, etc.), just to name a few. It was so fun to play, even though I wasn't 100% in my playing...my high range still wasn't working, which limited me just on a couple passages with high As. It was definitely an exhausting concert, but incredibly memorable.
The 2nd concert with the YSO was a concert with a circus company that featured a bunch of orchestral classics. I got to play 2nd horn on this concert. It was about 3 days after the John Williams concert, and I was still in my playing slump, which seemed worse for that concert. I managed, though, and played better at the concert than I had at rehearsals. I finally got to play Ride of the Valkyries, and although the 2nd horn part is really repetitive and accompanimental, I had a lot of fun playing it. I also got to play the 2nd horn solo on Beethoven 7 again, which also went well.
The next day after that concert I took the day off from playing, and came back to my horn pretty much revitalized. My high range was back, and has been there ever since. Strange.
Once those gigs were over, preparation went underway for my brass camp. I planned the deadline for applications poorly, as it was only 2 weeks from the camp's first day. So, on that 2-week mark when I had my full personnel list and instrumentation, I only had two weeks to prepare a bunch of music. it took a lot of my time, and in some cases I picked out music that I didn't know the sound of. I also wasn't able to get the kids their music beforehand.
But, despite some minor planning issues, we had a very successful brass camp. The best one ever. A lot of music we did was really great and the students loved. The schedule was good and engaging, and went smoothly. We had a lot of great help from coaches, which were a lot of my friends in the music world. But the best part was definitely this amazing group of students and the bond we shared. It was really like a big family. I mean, that's how my studio of students always is, but with the inclusion of so many new students (particularly those from Anacortes, which has a similar family feel with them and their band teacher), it just gelled really well together. I do have much more to tell about the camp and some media to share, which I will do soon.
After the camp, I worked vigorously to arrange music for another Gothard Sisters concert with the Saratoga Orchestra, which includes a full orchestra (winds, brass & percussion with the strings). I had to prepare 7 tunes, 4 of which I had done with just strings before). It was a lot of work, but was really fun, because it allows me to be creative with the scoring and even adding an original melody or countermelody here and there. We perform this concert on Wednesday, August 3 at 6pm at Windjammer Park in Oak Harbor, WA...it's going to be pretty amazing!
Yeah, I've got more to write, but no more time right now. Stay tuned!
Take care and value music.