Always on the move…or at least thinking about it…

A busy week – in the stretch of a busy month of thinking…

On Tuesday, I will be taking students to audition for our District Honor Band at Westminster College.  It is always an anxiety filled time for them, and easy to lose site of the fact auditions are the test of our growth, not our worth (see I believe for more examples).

On Wednesday evening and all day Thursday I am guest conducting in Beaver Falls, Pa. I was absolutely floored that Len would ask me.  I have a lot of respect for Len as a director and person, and the fact he would consider me for the JH portion of the festival is an honor.  The program includes Julie Giroux’s Wagon Trail, Suspended Animation by Patrick J. Burns, Friends of Freedom by Timothy Loest, Basin Street Blues arranged by Paul Jennings, and the group will give the world debut of A West Highland Fanfare (coming in July of 2011).

On top of that I am still knee deep in research from my own students about their chamber music experience (Yes we stuck the landing, now we have to measure how far we lept…), thickening up a review of literature that may lead to my disseration topic at Kent, finishing a piece for another Honor Band in February (where I get to work with Mike Grady), and starting a commission for a pair of friends and colleagues who have an outstanding band program near Pittsburgh.

I will be back on soon hopefully with some profound thoughts and perspective that help save music…one note at a time.