XWO

The new guidelines and permission forms for student blogs are now available: Orchestra Blogging. The will also always be available on the Docs page.

Students must have written permission in order to use their blogs for reporting practice. If you already have a blog from last year, you will still need to get a permission form turned in before I will count any of your blogging for credit.

What a great trip the Advanced Orchestra had this week. It was a lot of travel in a long day, but I think everyone had a really good time. If anyone has pictures from the day, I would love to get some copies and put them up on the blog for people.

We played well, living up to what I thought we were capable of achieving for so early in the year. It was a really good start for us.

The clinicians were great (Dr. Kirk Moss and Michael Hopkins), and they gave some great compliments about our musicality and ensemble playing. They also gave us some valuable criticism that will help us shape the direction of our work for the next months – TONE and INTONATION work!

I especially enjoyed hearing all of you work with Brian Roessler, in the improvisation workshop. That is something that we don’t usually get enough of. There is a great arrangement of the folk tune, “All the Pretty Horses,” that I think we will have to do this year. It has some really cool extended improvisation sections. We will definitely have to continue moving forward in this direction more.

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. It was a great way to start the year. Thanks, Dorqs.

On Tuesday, October 13th, the Advanced Orchestra will be traveling to Moorhead to participate in the MSU Moorhead Invitational Orchestra Festival.

The trip will be a one-day event. We will leave Crosswinds early, bus to Moorhead for the Festival, and bus back later that evening. We will have lunch and dinner along the way. In order to prepare for the trip, we will also be having an important Monday night rehearsal, on Monday, October 12th, from 6:00-8:00.

Download the full details, schedule, and release and consent forms here:

MSU Festival Packet

I’ve begun, finally, to post the podcasts from our summer concert. I will post one or two each day until they are all up.

You can find the podcasts in the sidebar or on the Pods page. Remember that you can always find our latest podcasts on iTunes. Just visit the iTunes store and search for Crosswinds Orchestra.

Enjoy!

What a fantastic start to a great new year. There are so many new players to greet, along with a stellar crew of returning dorqs.  Be sure to make all the new players welcome!

There are lots of changes this year, including a space to call our own, an everyday orchestra schedule, a new beginning orchestra, an after school full orchestra, newly purchased instruments to accommodate all the new players, and soon, an interactive whiteboard in our room, and possibly new instrument storage racks and a conductor’s podium. Whew!

Probably the most exciting thing is the new beginning orchestra, with 28 newly recruited dorqs enrolled, including 18 violinists, 5 violists, 4 cellists, and a bassist. My goal for this group is to have everyone comfortable with first position technique and music reading, along with good fundamental bowing skills and tone production. By year’s end, I think this group may be able to tackle pieces like Crossing Pirate’s Cove.

We also welcome a lot of new players to Orchestra I who have come to Crosswinds from string programs all over the East Metro. Many have come specifically because of the orchestra! It will be an exciting year for this group, especially since it is the first time Orchestra I gets to begin the year playing more advanced music (because all of the beginners are in the new group). Orchestra I should be playing all Level 2 pieces by the end of the year. I would like to try Toccatina and Conquistador with this group this year.

Already there have been exciting developments in Orchestra II this. At the end of the first week of school, 13 students auditioned and 5 were accepted to move up. The audition winners were: Cole, Flora, Payeng, Lauren, and Andre. Then, in week 2, Francine won our concertmaster audition. Now we are busily preparing the program for our trip to Moorhead on October 13th.

It should be a very exciting year.

Audition excerpts and listening is now available on the Auditions page.

Auditions will take place on Friday, September 11th, and will be heard by a committee of members of the advanced orchestra. All auditions will be heard anonymously, as all players will be hidden from committee members by the stage panels.

In addition to the two excerpts, each player should be prepared with C, G, and D scales in two octaves.

Find the excerpts by clicking the Auditions tab at the top of any page, or by following this Auditions Page Link.

Good Luck!

I am busy listening to music choices for next year. Below are some of the links that I recommend for finding music. There are lots of samples to listen to, and I find most of my music at Alfred or at Kjos. Here are the links to their sites:

Alfred Music (Use the “Browse by Grade Level” links)

Kjos Music (Use the drop down menu: Strings/String Orchestra)

For advanced orchestra we are looking at pieces at level 2-3 for the beginning of next year. Intermediate orchestra will be at level 1-2 for the beginning of the year.

If you find something you like, post the link or comment in this thread. Kam has already put a lot of music choices on his blog, so spend some time listening to some of the music choices he has linked on his blogroll.

Kam’s choices

Thank you for everything. You are the best students a director could ever hope for. I will never forget the music we made together this year. Tonight was a fantastic finale to a fabulous year.

Crosswinds Radio is back on the air, broadcasting a rough recording of our concert 24/7 for the next couple of weeks. I will slowly be getting the podcasts mastered, and I will make them available every few of days until they are all out there. In the meantime, you can hear yourselves on XWOR.