Honor Band Weekend

Tyler was nominated by his band director to attend Capital University's Honor Band. He has been nominated to participate in Ohio State's Honor Band the past two years, but after being nominated, participants are selected by a lottery system. For this honor band, nominations were actually reviewed and then some students received invitations based on their qualifications and submissions from their band directors. Tyler and one other student from our school were invited to attend.

He missed school yesterday to attend. His day started early, though, with chair auditions. Earlier this week he received an email with audition music attached. He also had to play a difficult scale and sight read a piece. He has auditioned for chairs in his own band, but never in front of strangers in a formal environment, and I don't think he had to sight read a piece then. I'm sure he was nervous, but what a great experience! Something like that can only make you better.

After auditions their day was filled with practices, master classes, campus tours, lunch & dinner, and concerts by a local high school band and the college's concert band. His day ended around 11pm last night. He reported at 8am again today and did more of the same. The weekend culminated with a concert this afternoon. All said, they had around 6 hours of actual playing time together. Keep that in mind when you listen to the pieces they performed. It was amazing!

Tyler had a great time! He said it was so neat to be surrounded by so many talented people. Even their first time through, the music sounded decent because they all knew what they're doing. The conductor was a famous composer/arranger who has written a lot of the music they've played in band. He thought that was neat. This was a super experience for Tyler and I am so very thankful he had the opportunity to be a part of it!!

The first piece is my favorite. The last piece is Tyler's favorite. My cell phone recording does not do the sound justice. The first piece is long, 5 minutes. The rest are shorter. The 3rd song is Indian and has a droning sound through the whole thing that my phone doesn't really pick up. The 2nd song has a guest performer who is playing the flugelhorn. (Sorry it's a little shaky at first.) We have joked with Tyler for awhile about getting him a flugelhorn because it's cool to say and looks kind of like a big trumpet. It was neat to listen to someone play one. 3 of the 4 songs were composed by James Swearingen, the gentleman conducting.

 

 

We went to dinner afterward. Doesn't everyone dress up for Chipotle? I know he had a good time because he chose to talk to me about his weekend during most of dinner rather than texting or surfing on his phone. Danielle had a college softball showcase out of town today so she and Ron couldn't go. We scheduled it at the end of summer and couldn't get a refund. Sounds like she had a great day, too. One of the college coaches remembered her from a previous tournament and commented several times on her speed. It's fun to watch the kids excel at what they love, but it doesn't just happen. They both work very hard.