New Solo Ensemble Dates Announced for 2010-2011

I just got back from the Flyway Directors Meeting at Bublitz's Restaurant in Lomira.  All the band and choir directors of the Flyway Conference schools who are available meet on the first Tuesday in May and another on the first Tuesday in October every year to discuss Solo Ensemble and Concert Festival dates and locations, which schools are next in the rotation of hosting duties, etc.

Next year, 2010-2011, Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson, WI will be hosting the Flyway Conference District Solo Ensemble Festival on two separate weekends:

• March 5, 2011 – Instrumental
• March 12, 2011 – Vocal & Piano

WLA's band students who are also in choir should know that March 12, 2011 is also the weekend of the WELS National Bandfest at Arizona Lutheran Academy in Phoenix, so if they are selected for Bandfest and they want to participate in vocal or piano solo ensemble events, they will have to schedule their events for March 5, 2011.  See me for more details.

A number of other dates and concerts were discussed at our meeting:

• Jan 26, 2011 – Flyway District Honors Band (MS & HS) @ St. Mary's Springs, FDL
• Late April - Early May – Large Group Band Concert Festival @ Lomira HS 
• Some Wednesday in April or May - Large Group Choir Concert Festival @ Mayville HS

The dates for the two concert festivals will be firmed up by October 4.  WLA's Traveling Choir sang in this school year's choir concert festival which I hosted at WLA.  Next year the Choir Concert Festival will be back at Mayville HS if everything goes as planned.  WLA and Mayville seem to trade off hosting duties for the Choir Concert Festival because we both want to see the festival continue.  Sure would be nice if Horace Mann HS in North FDL would host.  They've got a great auditorium!

If life were perfect, and I had a fellow choir director on staff at WLA, I'd prepare all three WLA choirs for Concert Festival, but it's difficult to be the "head coach" of three "teams" who are all "playing games" back-to-back on the same day.  Honestly, that happened to me a couple years ago when I took all three WLA choirs to Lomira HS a number of years back and had to be on stage with one group performing for a judge while the next choir was warming themselves up backstage.  Not a good thing.

The Honors Band at St. Mary's Springs next January is not something that the WLA Band normally participates in because of our own WELS Bandfests, but it is always a possibility for them to send students to.  Generally, each high school and middle school band would recommend their top six students to the host director to make up an honors band of up to 80 pieces.  There would be one middle school and one high school honors band, for a total of almost 160 students.  Clinicians from regional college or university band programs would rehearse the students during the day and present a joint concert in the evening.

I'll put these dates on the WLA music calendar, which, incidentally, can also be accessed on Google Calendars. 

This is what it looks like: