Author: Shogan_composer

For the remainder of these posts, I’ve elected to keep them short and sweet. This is mostly because Life has been remarkably busy the last few months, and will continue this way until after Midwest. Consequently, I won’t have as much time to focus on writing articles until January. ( Sometimes Composing and Teaching are full-time jobs in and of themselves, let alone combining the two, as has been the case lately.)

The 18th performance that I attended was Swan Lake which was put on by the Metropolitan Ballet, on October 29th.

This was only the second Ballet I’ve ever seen, if you count the Nutcracker performance I got to see 10 years ago put on by the same company. Overall, I quite enjoyed it. My favorite scenes were those with the chorus of swans as it was magical to watch when coupled with the costumes and lighting. I learned a lot by watching the choreography in real time along with the music. Perhaps someday I’ll compose a ballet! I may ned to see a few more first though, before I attempt this endeavor.

Thank you to one of my lesson parents who thought of me and passed on the tickets when they could not attend as planned!

The second performance, ( #19) I’ll mention in this post was the Orono High School Production of BrightStar, the musical on November 19th. I was invited by one of my students as it was her first musical performance, and I wanted to support her. I had my reservations, as it was a high school play, and casting is not usually the best from past experiences, but boy was it a delight to watch! What impressed me the most was the stage direction and the level of participation by all members of the cast and crew. Members of the ensemble were used in just about every scene and they participated in much of the action and scene setup. Kudos to whoever was in charge of stage direction and choreography. All of the students put earnest effort into their acting and singing, and not a bored-looking person, or unconvincing line delivery on stage was found!

For the remainder of these posts, I’ve elected to keep them short and sweet. This is mostly because Life has been remarkably busy the last few months, and will continue this way until after Midwest. Consequently, I won’t have as much time to focus on writing articles until January. ( Sometimes Composing and Teaching are full-time jobs in and of themselves, let alone combining the two, as has been the case lately.)

In the First half of October, I was able to see 2 concerts in Anoka MN, aka, the Halloween Capital of the World.

I planned to attend the First concert on 10/7 after seeing a Facebook post from my Friend Heidi, who happens to play horn in the band. Additionally, I have been waiting to see the Lake Wobegone Brass Band since moving to MN, as they have garnered quite a reputation for being excellent. Unfortunately, every opportunity I’ve had to hear them before this was prevented by life getting in the way, as well as a global pandemic. Was the wait worth it though?

Absoluteley!

This band had amazing dynamic control and a wonderful blend. I could tell that the band is composed of some incredibly accomplished musicians and that they have been playing together for such a long time that they could almost read each other musically during the performance. There were some goosebump worthy moments. My favorite piece though was the ending. They consluded with an arrangement of Macarthur Park which left me singing the lyrics to Jurassic Park, the parody by Weird Al in the parking lot. Maynard Furgason ( or at least his spirit) paid a visit as well, in the form of the Coronet player who nailed those high notes!

At the end of their concert, they shared about a performance that was happening the following weekend that included the conductor and several Brass Band Members, so my S.O. and I decided to attend.

Performance 18 was on 10/14 and was given by the Northern Symphony Orchestra at Anoka High School. Although this one wasn’t as exciting musically for me as the brass band concert, It was still a worthwhile experience. I think that was beacuse all of the composers, although they made an attempt to be inclusive which I appreciate, were long dead. The first half was a bit homogonous in timbre which, as a listener , felt draining . Perhapse placing the Debussy Petite Suite after Fanny Mendellson’s Overature in C Major and opening the second half with Joseph Balogne’s Symphony No.1 in G would have remedied this. However, it was worth the wait to hear the group perform Appalachain Spring by Aaron Copland at the End. The group was definately more awake by the end of the concert!

I’m attending 25 Live Performances by the end of 2023!

Those that are subscribed to my newsletter know that I taught aspring young musicians at the She Rock She Rock Camp this summer, and had one of the most fun times of my life.

I was one of the Keyboard instructors and also got to help co coach a band during the second ( Teen ) week.

In the week that each of the groups were at camp, we prepared them to be able to play cover songs with each other, and they were each assigned a band to be in. At the end of the week, each band premiered a BRAND NEW ORGINAL song that they created together, at the downtown VFW.

While I am having trouble recallig many specific songs (admittedly I didn’t get to this post right away as I meant to…oopse!) , I do remember eperiencing the joy and excitement on each of the camper’s faces as they got on stage for the first time and Rocked out in front of an audience. There was a wide variety of styles from a hard rock song about Randomness that was…. totally random, blending Emotional goth, Jazz and punk styles, to outright Rock Anthems. Some of the songs were so good that you might not believe that they came from kids as young as 9 -16 years old!

For me, the most rewarding experience from the performances was seeing some of the kids who came in unsure of themselves for one reason or another, finishing up camp enjoying themselves, confidently rocking out and making music!

You can learn more about She Rock She Rock by visiting www.SheRockSheRock.org

I’m attending 25 performances by the end of 2023!

As this was a convention full of music teachers, there were plenty of opportunities to attend some performances.

For this report, I want to focus on 2 student performances that were memorable from the weekend.

The first came from the Music Bridges participants. Music Bridges is a program where students pick a theme that interests them and prepare 2-to 3 pieces of standard repertoire to perform. It is a nongraded performance, but gives the students an opportunity to share their creativity and music making, as well as get some performance experience in a less stressful way than a contest or formal recital.

The first performer looked to be in elementary school. She picked Movement as her theme and performed 3 pieces. I think one was titled Kangaroo Jump. She’s also an ice skater and dancer, so she showed a video of her skating to music and choreographed a dance to The Beatles “Twist and Shout” that she shared with us at the end.

The next was a girl close to graduating high school who picked the composer Aram Khachaturian. Before her report and performance, I only knew him for The Sabre dance due to it being played at Buffalo Sabres Hockey games growing up. She shared some wonderful waltzes as well as a duet with her brother. For the creative part, she reported on his history as a perceived “Soviet” composer and shared a photo that she recolored by hand to better reflect Khachaturian’s true nationality and political beliefs. She clearly took hours on this project alone. and played beautifully all the way through.

The second performance came from the guitar showcase.

Although most of the presentation was talking about the MMTA guitar cirriculum that they offer, there was a performance from a young student, probably only 11 or 12 by their appearance. This student came in from Wisconsin to perform for us. What inpressed me the most was how determined and focused he was during his performance, and it was a treat to hear him as well.

They ended the showcase with a trio of Latin American music shared between the student, teacher, and presenter. It’s not every day that you get to hear a guitar ensemble, let alone one that was clearly having fun in the moment of reading and performing this piece for us!

My only regret from the convention is that I forgot to write down the performer’s names in my program as I was too busy listening and enjoying their art. If they see this blog post someday, I hope they can smile at the fact that they brought me joy from listening to them and that I hope they continue making music for the love of it!