I'm very excited for the recital, though. My students have been working very hard to prepare themselves for this, and are really tackling it head-on. It's not just going to be about them looking good and gaining the experience of playing a solo; they're actually going to sound quite good at them. I'm very pleased with the increased skill level of my students compared to last year, and its another step towards my goal of increasing the expectation of skill level for brass players here on this island. I want people who don't live on Whidbey saying, "man, there sure are a lot of great brass young players coming off of Whidbey Island! I wonder what's going on up there!"
On a similar topic, registration for the Whidbey Island Brass Camp continues. I'm honestly a little worried, because I wanted to have a least 20 students at the camp, but I only have 10, and I asked for registration to be turned in by the 19th. I may have to extend that another week. Also, most of applications are my students already, which is great, but I really wanted to attract those who are not studying with me. I wasn't able to get to the schools to advertise this myself, and I doubt the band teachers had much time to talk about this themselves. My dream is to be able to address the parents of every band student in this area directly, but there's not really any way I can do that. I've advertised it all of the place, but talking about it what's really important.
Take care and value music.