US Postal Service Issues Jazz Stamp

Click this link to find out about this very cool new stamp, just issued by the US Postal Service. It's not the first stamp to honor jazz music, however. There was a series called "Legends of American Music" that featured jazz musicians (1995) and big band leaders (1996). Individuals such as Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington have had their own stamps as well. Ellington is even on the back of the Washington D.C. quarter.

Three years ago, Latin Jazz was featured as a stamp:

It's a shame that so few letters are sent these days, because such a great tribute to "America's classical music" should be seen by everyone.

Choir Trip to Ireland

Tomorrow, the DHS Chorale and Choraliers leave for Ireland. If you would like to follow their travels, you can check out their blog. Best of luck to Mrs. Akers, Mr. Velleuer, and all of the chorus students!

DHS Band on Twitter

You may have noticed a new Twitter box on the sidebar. For the uninitiated, Twitter is a "microblogging" service that allows users to send out mini status messages called "tweets" to anybody who is interested in following them. My plan is to use Twitter during the Montréal trip to send out updates and links to pictures so that everybody back in Deerfield can follow along as we perform and tour the city. You can receive them online or on your mobile phone. There are at least four ways to follow the @deerfieldband Twitter feed:

• Register for a Twitter account and sign up to receive tweets from @deerfieldband as text messages or on your Twitter home page.
• Don't want to register? Simply text "follow deerfieldband" to 40404 and you'll receive tweets as text messages. You can unregister at any time.
• You can subscribe to an RSS feed of the tweets by clicking on the RSS link at our Twitter profile page and read the posts on your homepage or with a reader.
• You can also just read the tweets as they show up on this blog in the sidebar.

Wow--that's a lot of techno mumbo jumbo for one post. If you don't understand any of this, ask a teenager to help you out!

Solo and Ensemble Fest

The annual solo and ensemble festival was last Friday afternoon. This year, our friends from HPHS were unable to attend, so it was a smaller, more intimate affair. We had five adjudicators who joined us to offer their expertise. As each time slot was 15 minutes long, there was plenty of time for them to work with the soloists and small groups. Many of the sessions turned into mini private lessons, with the opportunity to play the entire piece a second time. The judges were very complimentary about our students' preparation and professionalism, and I was very proud of everybody who performed. All of the Wind Ensemble students were required to perform in a chamber ensemble, and we had a wide variety of groups: flute trio, woodwind trio, 2 woodwind quintets, clarinet quartet, sax sextet, 2 trumpet trios, 2 brass quintets, low brass quartet, and percussion ensemble. The music ran the gamut from a Cuban cha-cha to Mozart to a piece mysteriously titled "The Octopus."

I was also very excited to see a number of students perform solos as well as auditioning for the orchestra concerto competition. What really made me happy, though, was having two ensembles each from the Concert and Symphonic Bands. The freshman horn and percussion sections both performed, as did a trio of junior trombones and the entire SB euphonium section. I hope that next year more CB and SB groups will take a risk and put together a group to work on chamber music. Students who do so gain greater musical independence as they work together to learn a piece of music, making all of the artistic decisions themselves. It's an important part of a truly comprehensive music education.

Recent Band Pictures

At the winter band concert, we had our annual yearbook pictures taken. The photos now grace the individual ensemble pages on the band website, replacing last year's pictures (although in the case of Wind Ensemble, the new picture replaces one that was 4 years old!). Since those shots are a bit small, I've posted them below. Click on the picture to see it full size:

Concert Band:

Symphonic Band:



Wind Ensemble:



I also have some pictures here of the Jazz Band performance for the senior citizen Valentine's Day Concert at the Patty Turner Center:

Joining us in the concert were Deerfield's own "Hummers and Strummers," a band/choir of ukelele players who sing songs from the 20s and 30s, accompanied by washtub bass. They were awesome!