It was another great year at the Auckland KBB Music Festival. I had three groups in, the Kristin Symphonia, the Carmel College Chamber Orchestra and the Carmel College Senior Orchestra. Both of my full orchestras received a bronze award. Well done to David Squire and the organisers for another fantastic event.
Kristin Symphonia at KBB 2009
Carmel College Senior Orchestra at KBB 2009
I will be conducting a concert of New Zealand wind music with the Auckland Wind Orchestra on 18th October 2009. This will be a wonderful event as we present some of the finest New Zealand works for wind orchestra.
The programme will include music by Yvette Audain, Matthew Crawford, David Woodcock, Philip Norman, Christopher Marshall and myself. Further details will follow.
On November 26 my wife and I depart for 45 days in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil. As well as a personal trip, I will be visiting composers and musicians along the way and it will end with a week in Brazil with the wonderful conductor, composer and arranger, Alexey Kurkdjian. We will be working on a very special project together, details on that soon.
Following my first conducting engagement with the Auckland Wind Orchestra earlier this month, I have been asked to conduct another concert of theirs on Sunday 18th October. More details to follow.
I will also be conducting them at the Robin Holst Memorial Concert this Saturday. 2pm Saturday June 27, 2009. Auckland Normal Intermediate Hall. Poronui Street, Mt Eden. Other groups involved include: Auckland Youth Symphonic Band, Auckland Normal Intermediate Choir, Auckland Boys’ Choir, Auckland Wind Orchestra, A Massed Band of Past and Present Players.
Hey everyone, well another Opononi Summer School has finished (… for those who don’t know it’s for wind orchestra, and I conduct). 32 hours of rehearsals, 32 kilometers walked to and from rehearsals, and a final two-hour concert to conclude the week. Mostly due to the early mornings, you wonder what on earth you are getting yourself into in the weeks beforehand. Of course, once you’re there it’s just what you do and it’s good “fun”?
Due to a few clashes with other events, the numbers were a little down than usual. But this was music to my ears as we had everything covered (french horns, tubas, bassoons, bass clarinet, oboe, piccolo, euphonium, etc) and the right forces, AND they were all good strong players. Often with more players you just have excess flutes, clarinets, trumpets and alto saxophones … which often leads to a complete disaster. Anyway so this meant that we could take the pieces further than usual, and the sound they created this year was fantastic.
A few have asked me what sort of music we do, so here was this year’s concert programme:
Theme from Lost in Space – John Williams
Procession of the Nobles – Rimsky-Korsakov
Sleeping Beauty Waltz – Tchaikovsky
Birdland – Joe Zawinul
Blaze Away – Abe Holzmann
There’s No Business Like Show Business – Irving Berlin
Tribute to Louis Armstrong
A Touch of Tuba (tuba solo) – Art Dedrick
The London Suite – Eric Coates
Nearer by God To Thee – adpt. Custer
Mamma Mia – ABBA
In The Hall of the Mountain King – Grieg
Firebird Suite – Stravinsky
Phantom of the Opera – Lloyd-Webber
Georgia on My Mind – arr. Higgins
Sinatra in Concert – arr. Nowak
The Stripper – Davod Rose
Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
So really, a complete range. The aim of the week is to leave playing better than you did at the beginning of the week, and as well as that I always make sure they play several pieces that they wouldn’t have a chance to otherwise. Of course, 32 hours of rehearsals in a week mean you have to have your share of fun and “classics” also. We also looked at other pieces during the week including:
Chit Chat Polka – Strauss
South Pacific – arr. Bennett
James Bond 007 arr. Mey
John Williams Trilogy – arr. Moss
Thanks heaps once again for all the hard work everyone put in, it was certainly a very successful year and a very high standard reached. Soon I shall put some photos up on flickr – I didn’t quite have a chance to before this email. Anyway bye for now, Ryan
Well the craziest week of the year for Auckland school orchestras, chamber orchestras, jazz and concert bands, is that of the annual KBB festival. Gosh, it is busy. Last year I had the Kristin senior orchestra in, and it was my first year … so everything is still a little bit of a blur. I remember being just so horribly nervous. BUT we got a bronze award, something the orchestra had never received before.
This year I had three orchestras. WHAT FUN!! The first was the Carmel College Orchestra:
Conducting the Carmel College Orchestra at the KBB Festival
These guys were awesome. They were playing some tricky pieces and it all went fantastically well. My second biggest disaster of the day happened when I gave a very distinctive cue to the first violins at a place where I know they don’t count and it’s not clear what’s going on musically – they just wait for the cue, a whole two bars early. But thank goodness they entered correctly.
Next up was the Kristin Symphonia.
Conducting the Kristin Symphonia at the KBB Festival
I had such a blast conducting these guys. With one down, I just relaxed and I could tell the players were also just having a great time on stage. Their programme also went wonderfully well.
Afterwards I was whisked away to the Carmel Chamber Orchestra who was warming up. While I was putting my favourite baton away … it snapped!! DISASTER!! It was my favourite baton, which I only use in concerts, got it from America, and has my name engraved. I couldn’t believe it. I sulked for a while, but since then however, I have had the superglue out, and it is like new … well maybe just a little bit wonky.
Well finally was the Carmel Chamber Orchestra. Was number three for me, it was 4:40pm and they had been there since 9:30am. But we got up there and gave it everything. Luckily we had some light numbers … a piece by Silvestri and one by the Beatles. They did very well and were well received by the audience, but maybe, like us, they just wanted to go home.
Well I was happy to get out of the venue at the end of the day. Being sandwiched in by hundreds of school kids all day is not to be desired. But was happy also that all my groups had done wonderfully well. Now I look forward to the results …
Hey everyone,
Well last night was Kristin School‘s May Magic concert. It is their mid-year music extravaganza and last night it went fantastically well. It had everything from the year one and two choir, through to the senior award winning groups.
One of my orchestra’s, the Kristin Symphonia performed. It was our first big performance for the year. A few hairy moments, but went beautiful. I was so proud of them. Panning out to be a good year from them I think.
Photo link coming soon.
Well our camp for another year is over. It was a fantastic weekend up at Shakespear Lodge at the Shakespear Regional Park. We had many rehearsals and many great meals. A crack of dawn rehearsal on the Sunday and some time to chill down at the beach. We did ALOT of playing and it really paid off as the orchestra is now sounding fantastic.
Enjoy.