Dear Chamber Strings Musicians & Families,
Our first performance will be on Wednesday, February 10th at 7:30pm in the FMS Cafetorium. On this evening, all of the Farnsworth Middle School Select Ensembles will perform for family and friends. Here is some important information you should know:
Ø Arrive at 6:45pm and report to the Orchestra Room.
Ø Wear your best dress clothes! Please, no sneakers or jeans.
Ø The concert is free, and no tickets are required.
Ø The Select Ensemble performances should be no longer than 1 hour.
In addition to our concert on the 10th, Chamber Strings traditionally performs at the Young People's Concert. You may remember attending this concert when you were in elementary school, and now it is your turn to perform for Guilderland's beginning musicians!
The Young People's Concert will be held on March 22nd at 12:15pm. The Young People's Concert is an opportunity for us to play in the auditorium at Guilderland High School for a large and excited audience.
Please fill out and return the permission slip for this performance. Permission slips are due by March 1st. I look forward to showing the Guilderland community the results of all of our hard work!
Monday, January 25, 2010
In attendance were:
Arianna Barnum
William Wang
Bill Dong
Erin Templeton
Rachel Swyer
Marko Crnkovic
Catie Rafferty
Naila Brown
Andrea Long
Cody Ingraham
Thank you to those who attended today's rehearsal. I know that midterms and illness made this a small, unbalanced group, but we were able to get some good work done.
Our concert is on February 10th! This means we only have 2 regularly-scheduled rehearsals left, and I will not be at one of them. Due to a multitude of after school activities that would conflict with an additional rehearsal during an activity period, stop by the orchestra room on Thursday, February 4th to pick up your pass for an in-school rehearsal. This rehearsal will be 40 minutes long beginning at 9:30am on Friday, February 5th. Please talk to your teachers on Thursday about this absence on Friday.
We ran through the program today. Our performance on February 10th will consist of: Die Forelle, Allegretto from Op. 16, and Winter. Each of these pieces needs individual attention in some capacity.
Here are the most noticeable areas for improvement and/or changes we made this rehearsal:
Die Forelle - dynamics! This is a piece that is 1st violin-centered (i.e. the first violins have the melody throughout). However, bring out the small sections (single measures here and there) that we have discussed for each of the other parts. It is very important that we stay below [dynamic] the first violin part. Make sure the ritard is marked in the last 2 measures, and put a fermata over the last note.
Allegretto - I will not be conducting this piece. Take some time to copy in the markings I gave to the principal stands regarding rhythms to listen for. We will repeat Allegretto at least once, so it is important that you know how to take that repeat. Again, check with the principal stands if you are unclear, but we changed the last measure from a dotted quarter note tied to a quarter note to a dotted quarter note tied to an eighth note and added an eighth rest to give us time to catch the pickup note on the repeat. The additional change to Allegretto is that the cellos will cue us. They have the melody, so it makes more musical sense that they show the preparatory breath.
Winter - Specific sections of this still need a lot of individual work. Cellos, make some mark in your part to keep you from changing chords too early in the beginning of the piece. It is exhausting to look at so many eighth notes in this tempo, so you have to either practice very carefully, count, or know what to listen for. Violas, I will cue the entrances that are confusing to you, so don't worry -- just watch. Violins, I know I have said this over and over and over again, but there is no better way to get better at your part than to work with a metronome (and to be at the correct part of the bow)! The 32nd note parts were extra messy today for a few reasons:
1. You weren't listening to each other. Listening is crucial!
2. You weren't watching each other. Don't watch me. Watch the people next to you, the people in front of you, and the violinists in the other sections so that you can match their bowstroke and rhythm.
3. The bowing is still uncomfortable for you at various tempos. In rehearsal, we try to vary the tempo to reflect any speed that might occur in performance, but the fact is that when adrenaline is racing, so might our tempo. If you can't play those double down bows slowly with precise rhythm, you can't play them quickly. If you don't practice these passages with a metronome at varying speeds, you will not have the flexibility to play with others.
Practice! Practice! Practice!
Our next rehearsal will be: Monday, February 1st (with substitute)
