Last week I had a concert in Overture Hall at the Overture Center in Madison. This was the second time I've performed there. Big deal? I think yes. How many people can say that they've performed at the Overture Center? Not many. Still nothing compared to some of my friends who have played in Carnegie Hall, but I try not to think about that...
 |
| Me in Overture Hall! |
It all started out in February. One weekend, my mom and I drove to Middleton for my audition. I was really prepared and feeling pretty confident. And for some reason, I did horrible. Holding back my tears, I pretty much ran out of the building, barely made it in the car, then just started bawling. I can't remember how many weeks later, but I got a letter in the mail from WSMA (Wisconsin State Music Association - the guys running the whole dealio). I sat there, not wanting to open it for a few minutes. Finally, when I did, I first kept it folded. I could only read "Dear Isabella," before the crease kept the rest of the letter out of my view. Hesitating some more, I eventually unfolded the letter and saw one word...
"Congratulations"
...Then I started screaming :) YES I made it in the band. Yes yes yes yes yes!
Somehow the judge for my audition must have seen something. Maybe it was because I was in the orchestra the year before and thought I was just having an off-day. Maybe I was after a long string of auditions with players worse than me. I'll never know.
 |
| Brittany, me, and Taylor at camp |
 |
| Ninja! |
 |
| Erik was pretty good at Ninja |
I attended a 3 1/2 day camp at UW-Green Bay in June. Met up with some old friends from band camp and the year before, learned to hate marches even more, played my first game of ninja, met some one that I knew from a very rare and funny place, and had another bad audition. When I first got there, I had a chair audition. The entire trombone/euphonium/tuba section got an email a few weeks before so we could prepare. Our low brass coach told us what we should expect and I walked in expecting the expected. I was not expecting that he would do the unexpected and expect us to expect the unexpected. Yeah, so long story short, I got seventh chair out of 9. I should've been
at least third chair. Possibly even second. Funny how these things work out sometimes. Funny and unfair. That's life for ya...
 |
| Natasha and Dallas |
Later, I figured that since I was "first chair" for third part, it might have been because I was the only third part trombone with a trigger (aka my trombone can change keys just by holding the trigger and, therefor, I can play lower and more notes than a single horn). I guess some one had to play all the low notes that the other thirds couldn't get... Just had to be me, though.
Our director is also the director of one of the Marine bands, so that was pretty cool. He picked out very patriotic music for us to play.
American Emblem, Tribute, Liberty Fanfare, American Pageant, Armed Forces Medley, and a very random, not so patriotic, but really cool
Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral.
~American Emblem - John Philip Sousa said himself that this was one of the greatest marches ever written. The other two he listed were two of his own.
~Tribute - A very challenging piece to play, but it sounded amazing. This piece was written in honor of the women who have served in our Armed Forces.
~Liberty Fanfare - John Williams wrote this piece for Lady Liberty's 100th birthday. There is a narration that goes along and I guess this song was okay. I'm not a big fan of John Williams, though.
~
American Pageant - "That's a lot of notes" said my director after we played it at our concert. I couldn't agree more lol. It was written for Nixon's inauguration or something and is a medley of many American songs - Yankee Doodle, America the Beautiful, etc.
~Armed Forces Medley - A very nice medley of all the Armed Forces "theme songs." Quite an honor to play especially when seeing audience members stand for the group they served in when their song played.
~Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral - Such a beautiful, powerful piece. Look it up. There are no other words to express that piece.
 |
| Jim and Taylor taking a "seductive" break at Middleton :) |
So after the intense camp which pretty much crammed these six challenging pieces into our brains, we all parted ways for four months. Then, in October, we all meet up again at Middleton HS, make amazing music after rehearsing for hours on end. We rehearsed about six hours the first night. The next morning, we had a three hour rehearsal and then an hour dress rehearsal before the concert. It's amazing what we could do in just 24 hours.
 |
David still in Tuba Land buzzing on his
mouthpiece after the convention |
I also got to go to the State Music Convention at the Monona Terrace which is always a blast. If you bring your mouthpiece, you get to play all these instruments just for fun! Yeah, playing $5,000 trombones makes me feel like I'm floating or something lol. It's just so cool. My friend played this really awesome tuba for about twenty minutes straight. After about five minutes, we decided to leave him and let him be and could still hear him as we walked through the convention. When he came back to meet us, he was smiling so big and had this certain glow about him.. It was so funny :) He was high off of playing an awesome tuba!
 |
| Band warming up in Overture Hall |
 |
Taylor trying to find service backstage at the Overture Center
|
 |
| Jacob and I backstage - We were the only two kids in our conference to make it into State Honors :) |
 |
| My family and I after the concert |
 |
| L-Man and I after the concert! |
The concert went really well, too. Playing in Overture Hall is such a great experience that not many people get a chance to do, so I don't take it for granted. A lot of my friends from school don't realize what a big deal being in State Honors means. Especially getting in more than one year. I still have one more year to audition (hopefully with a MUCH better audition this time) and am really looking forward to it.
