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Here ye, Here ye, and LADIES AND GENTLEMEN… You only have about a day left to submit your entry for the 5th Edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival being hosted by Travis J. Weller at http://tjweller.wordpress.com (Composing Like Mad).

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Below is an embedded Picasa slide show of a number of photos take by Emily Maize of myself (conducting) and the Grove City College “Disney” Jazz Ensemble. Picasa is free, and is a competitor of Flickr (also free) which I also employ from time to time for photo sharing needs.  These programs are extremely useful to use and allow folks to share and distribute their pictures for virtually no cost (or little -if you want to make prints).

Disney had just put up their “winter” backdrop which can be seen in the background.  The vocalist in these pictures is senior music major, Ms. Erin Brignone.   You will also see audience members dancing to our music along with Disney’s character Stitch!.

If you would like to see these photos better or see more options click on the controls below:

This past week we had both the Grove City College Wolverine Marching Band (almost 200) and The Grove City College “Disney” Jazz Ensemble (Big Band of 19) perform at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL.   One thing that can be learned by the professional staff at Disney is that “Things go smoothly when advanced preparation and constant communications are implemented”.  

Almost two months in advance we sent the Jazz Ensembles’s play list to Disney.  They looked it over, sent us a stage plot and we had numerous conversations in the weeks in between with regard to setup, traveling, and overall integration.  Many band directors (especially band marching band and jazz directors) don’t take the time to needed to detail out the non-musical needs of their concerts and consequently find themselves in a “tizzy” the day of OR a day or two before the concert which leads to anxiety and quite likely… a lesser level of performance. 

I try as much as possible, to have lighting, sound, and performance lists available to everyone who may need it a least a week prior to the concerts we perform…sometimes even months.  Our Jazz concerts are so complicated, technically, that we have multiple meetings prior to the show to make sure that everyone is “on the same page”.  In years, past I’ve had to be the Technical Director, Stage Manager, and Music Director of the G.C.C. Jazz Ensembles, fortunately that has changed in the past few years, but the experiences have impressed on me the basic fact that those involved in the technical areas (or fringe areas) of a show need to have proper communication and data in order for the show to go off “without a hitch” or at least with only a few hitches…

This year was the first year that I was able to plan Jazz Ensemble, Stage Band, and “Disney” Jazz ensembles programs before the start of the year in their entirety and, WOW, has it made a difference in my ability to spend more time on the “right” literature in the rehearsals.   I’m not saying that I didn’t plan the programs out in years gone past, but this year I had the time to completely decide on all the show aspects (including the music) before the first day of school.  I haven’t had that luxury in the past due to my hectic schedules at the college and abroad.  This year was different and surely for the better. 

I had sent my stage plot to Disney about 7 weeks prior to the show and they were able to provide us with almost everything we needed to perform, including amps, keyboard, direct boxes, microphones, and music stands.  We literally showed up for the “gig”, jacked in, and GROOVED out!.   We had a great time at the Galaxy Palace Theater and so did those in attendance (Hey, I actually did see some of you there!  Thanks for coming and talking with me at the shows).

Read the rest of this entry →

I’m back from Disney…almost 20 hours on a bus…  Had a great time, the Grove City College Marching Band and Jazz Ensemble was amazing.  Will post pictures and information tomorrow.  For now… going to to catch up!