Performance Week 3

On Monday we started the week with sectionals for concert band. I found this really useful just having the clarinets on their own to work through the difficult parts. I then went to a talk from Ninian Perry who is a freelance musician. He started off his a career as a performer and now runs paragon, a music ensemble with the aim of helping people create and perform their own music. His talk was really interesting about his life and it was interesting to hear about paragon as I had never heard of them before. I then had contemporary ensemble. We quickly ran through a new piece which we are thinking of performing in the next performance block. I then went and had a run through with Catherine for our clarinet and guitar piece. We decided that we were not going to have it up and running to performance standard for the concert on Thursday night so we have had to postpone it for the next performance block.

I started Tuesday morning with choir, where we just ran through all the pieces and gave them some final touches before the concert. I then had Jazz band. We also just ran the pieces and fixed a couple of sections. In concert band we put all the parts we had worked on in the sectionals and made sure as a band we were doing them. It sounded much better.

Wednesday was the day of the Jazz band concert. We had a rehearsal in the morning which went really well. I then taught my clarinet pupil. I could see a great improvement and taught her a new piece. I then came back to college for half past five and watched the first half of the concert. It consisted of all the pop bands. It was really good, I had never seen any of them play before but I really enjoyed it. The folk band played while I was warming up so I never saw them, but I saw the big band play. They have improved so much this year. It was amazing. I really enjoyed it. The upside down band then played. It was really good and we got a really good response.

On the Thursday we had the classical concert. Throughout the day we were just running through all the pieces and getting everyone into their places. The concert started at seven o'clock. The choir were first on and sang really well. I watched all the other performers who were good and then the concert band were last. I was playing the solo in the second movement of the Holst piece. My hands were shaking but I felt amazing after it. Shrek dance party had a false start as no one came in so we had to start again. Once we were finished the applause was amazing. Overall I think the concert was a lot better this year than it has ever been.