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Unfortunately, I failed to submit a request for rehearsal dates at M.A.P.S. for the month of March. Please accept my apologies for this oversite on my part. I always double check scheduling but this time I failed to do so until this afternoon. Please share this info with as many friends as you can hopefully preventing a member making the trip only to find that our rehearsal has been cancelled. Only three rehearsals left before our Akron Library Recital. We can make this happen!

Once again, I am sorry!

Jim

Click here to view this week’s schedule.

Attendance Sign-In You can re-use this link for any reheasal date.

NOTE: The weekly calendar has been moved to the Calendar page of the website.

Woodwind Ensemble will be performing “Celebrated Air from Suite No. 3 in D” Bach. The Brass Ensemble will perform “Soul Bossa Nova” Quincy Jones. Good News! I tested negative!!!!!!!!! See you this evening! Jim

Hello Friends and Fellow Musicians! HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY! Lynne, Eddie and I have enjoyed a day of celebration quietly together in our home. All three of us are feeling much better and enjoyed a quiet day of excellent Irish food and drink prepared with the special love and touch of my very talented wife. I’m now enjoying my last cup of Irish coffee writing this reminder to all of you with respect to our next two weeks of preparation.

I’m so happy to be able to return to performances at the main Akron Public Library Auditorium. It has always been a special performance stage for us as I think back over the last 20 years. I feel like I’m returning home. Here are things for you to recall about the final preparation and performance day plan. 1). Everyone is expected to participate in this Recital. 2). Please invite Friends, Neighbors, and Loved Ones to attend this FREE performance. It’s an important part of your learning experience and should be witness so that you feel the warmth of artistic recognition. 3). You will follow the schedule of ensemble performance as indicated below. You will enter the stage from the right and leave from the right as you look at the stage from the house seats and into the house from the stage. You will only bring your own music stand, music, and instrument (no cases) on to the stage. 4). You will go directly to your assigned stage seat as quickly and quietly as possible when called from the stage. Leaving the stage quickly is even more important. We have found that leaving your cases in the seats in the back section of the house makes these movement much more organized. We have also found that members who have trouble with steps will have less hardships simply by sitting in backstage seats for the evening. Also only bringing a folder with the music you need for this one evening’s performance, not your entire library, is much better preparation. Please see the list and order of performing groups below. Coming to the next five rehearsal will prepare you for the control of your equipment and the professional organization of the night! Much more about this is in fact the order of the day for the next five rehearsals. Be there or be square!

Recital Order as of March 18th: Please make sure you have parts for these selection TONIGHT! Our Staff my add or replace as we move through the next five rehearsals.

1). Ensemble 24 Percussion on stage all other members clapping from the house; 2). Mallet Duet Herman Rubin, “Follow Me Close”, “Calypso Joe”; 3). Woodwind Ensemble; 4). Flute Solo Anna Ayoub “Fantasia Arabesque”; 5). String Ensemble “Sahara Crossing”6). Swingin’ Along; 7). Flute Choir “Minuet Suite #2 in bm; 8). Brass Ensemble.

As a Boy Scout in my youth, I learned a very important lesson from our Moto! “BE PREPARED”. I’m excited!!

Jim

/Watch Opera in theatres – LIVE. Advance ticket sales at Cinemark $25. Grab your friends and go.

Click here to view this week’s schedule.

Attendance Sign-In You can re-use this link for any reheasal date.

Concert Music List: Knights of Destiny, With Valor and Honor, Benediction, God Bless America, Stars Spangled Banner, Ukranian National Anthem, William Tell Overture, Stars and Stripes Forever, Hands Across the Sea, Invincible Eagle, Semper Fidelis, Queen on Stage, Bohemian Rapsody, Evil Ways, Sweet Georgia Brown, Satin Doll, The Blues, Hallelujah, Swan Lake. Strings: Swan Lake, Sahara Crossing, Pink Panther, Hornpipe, Danny Boy, Dramatic Essay.

NOTE: The weekly calendar has been moved to the Calendar page of the website.

Good evening, friends and fellow Musicians! After four days of negative testing this morning it hit me! I tested positive. Cathy will be conducting Full Combined Ensemble Rehearsal from 6:00 – 8:00 tomorrow evening. Please bring all 2024 music listed especially “Swan Lake”. She will be calling tunes in preparation for or Summer Concert Series. I’m sure you will enjoy her rehearsal. Please remember that our first performance this season is our Recital at the Akron Library Auditorium on Tuesday April 2. All four Sectional rehearsal classes will perform plus soloists and small groups from within our Combined Ensemble.

As always (even with a temperature) I’m EXCITED!!

Jim

Click here to view this week’s schedule.

Attendance Sign-In You can re-use this link for any reheasal date.

Concert Music List: Knights of Destiny, With Valor and Honor, Benediction, God Bless America, Stars Spangled Banner, Ukranian National Anthem, William Tell Overture, Stars and Stripes Forever, Hands Across the Sea, Invincible Eagle, Semper Fidelis, Queen on Stage, Bohemian Rapsody, Evil Ways, Sweet Georgia Brown, Satin Doll, The Blues, Hallelujah, Swan Lake. Strings: Swan Lake, Sahara Crossing, Pink Panther, Hornpipe, Danny Boy, Dramatic Essay.

NOTE: The weekly calendar has been moved to the Calendar page of the website.

Good evening, Friends and Fellow Musicians! The Covid Monster returned and invaded or family. My dear wife Lynne began feeling symptoms and tested positive Friday. I have tested negatively three times but have decided not to attend tomorrow evenings rehearsal. I will continue to test through Thursday morning. I believes that it is possible that I am not a carrier and that wearing a mask Thursday may be sufficient. That being said I will post my decision after testing on Thursday morning. Your Health is most important to me, and I will not chance passing this on without continued negative testing results. I have contacted Cathy Fogle, and she has no issue with me attending Thursday if there are no negative changes in my health. That being said tomorrow’s schedule will be changed because of my absence. I will post again on THURSDAY MORNING with respect to that evening’s rehearsal schedule. Please pass this information on to your friends. Here is tomorrow evening’s schedule revision: Monday March 11th – 5:00 Orientation Lessons (Strings Only). 6:00 Sectional Rehearsals Woodwind, Brass, Strings (Percussion rehears “24 Percussion Ensemble” on Landing with drums). 7:00 Full Ensemble upstairs; Flute Choir Pull Out downstairs.

Now on a more positive note I would like to share with you two experiences provided me by our Founder, Jim Stahl. Jim and Pat as you know are Snowbirds. Immediately on our arrival in Naples Florida Jim made arrangements for me not only to attend rehearsal of the famed Naples Concert Band but also personally introduced me to J. Steven Moore, the Music Director and Conductor and John Salminen the Associate Conductor. I was seated within the Band (which by the way Jim is now a member) and enjoyed the amazing opportunity to learn and absorb the techniques and secrets of the fame of their conducting success’s. I was restored, renewed, and reinspired. They share many of the same concepts and strange techniques that I understand and present to you continually. Sitting surrounded and completely inspired I felt recharged and rededicated to teaching more than just the noted in this wonderfully language we call MUSIC.

Then came the PIECE DE RESISTANCE! Every New Years Day I seat myself in front of the TV. But it is not to watch Football! I watch the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performing live from the famed “Golden Music Hall”. Just like a dream come true I was treated with tickets to the “Artis-Naples” home of the famous Naples Philharmonic. The Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Franz Welser-Most (present Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra) was performing Mahler Symphony No. 5 that evening. Jim and I studied the Symphony all morning with nonother than Leonard Berstein on television. I thought I was prepared! Ready to understand what I was about to hear and feel. From the moment the orchestra walk onto the stage, I was completely mesmerized by the Eruopean Instruments and their expertly controlled sound. The percussion instruments that I had admired on television in that moment, as all of the others did become alive. In an hour and a half, I was experiencing the understandable feelings of life. From Beginning to End. Without words. Without acting. Without explanation. Solely through the language of FEELING in music. Surrounded by hundreds, who all sat motionless while the diminuendo of the last note, controlled by the continuous downward motion of Most’s right hand, finally ended in silence. It truly was the end, and we all experienced it.

Click here to view this week’s schedule.

Attendance Sign-In You can re-use this link for any reheasal date.

Concert Music List: Knights of Destiny, With Valor and Honor, Benediction, God Bless America, Stars Spangled Banner, Ukranian National Anthem, William Tell Overture, Stars and Stripes Forever, Hands Across the Sea, Invincible Eagle, Semper Fidelis, Queen on Stage, Bohemian Rapsody, Evil Ways, Sweet Georgia Brown, Satin Doll, The Blues, Hallelujah. Strings: Swan Lake, Sahara Crossing, Pink Panther, Hornpipe, Danny Boy, Dramatic Essay.

NOTE: The weekly calendar has been moved to the Calendar page of the website.