MMEA All-State Festival

All-state was a lot of fun! I did sit around a lot, though. Most of the brass brought books to read while they weren’t playing, and I didn’t, so I got to sit and listen. The orchestra played Pines of Rome, a cool piece, but not very tuba-intensive. Since I didn’t play a lot, I got to play with the brass choir! We performed at the opening of the concert, and got to play with the chorus. Both went very well, and performing with a chorus was something I hadn’t done before, It sounded very cool, especially in symphony hall, where the voices and the brass had all these awesome overtones going on.

But I’d have to say that the band’s performance was the best. They performed Don Quixote under the direction of Robert W. Smith, and it had the most fun tuba part I ever saw. This was the best movement:

 (That’s not All-State, by the way) The percussionists had a stack of tin cans that they knocked to the floor that represented Don Quixote smashing to the ground after he tried to fight a windmill, very cool.

College visits

Let’s see… I saw Evelyn Glennie in concert, it was great! When she played her snare solo ‘Prim’ all the little kids who were allowed to watch on stage ran away with their hands over their ears.

I visited Berklee and UMASS! I met Scott Mendoker and Greg Fritze who are both great people. We ran around the chem building in UMASS and looked at all the equipment they had. I wish I could have taken home one of those canisters of liquid nitrogen. :) In Berklee we took a tour of the building and got to see all the state of the art equipment they had, which included a $60,000 sound board. I’ve never actually seen one of those.

’tis all.