Clay McKinney - President, Alabama Orchestra Association Jean Sibelius, IV.
Allegro con Fuoco Dear AOA, It is great to come to you at this time
of year to announce this year’s upcoming All State Festival Events. We have moved the AOA All State information to this issue in order to get it to all of you before the audition process begins. A big thank you to Garry Taylor, Executive Director of AMEA, for helping us with this. Please spread the word after you read so that we don’t miss anyone. We have a lot more orchestra teachers and students in the state now and we want to make sure they know about All State. As always, you may also point them towards the website
www.alabamaorchestraasociatin.org. We are most excited this year to announce the expansion of the Sinfonietta String Orchestra to be a Symphonic Orchestra. The new name of this ensemble will be the Sinfonia Orchestra and will include Strings, Winds, Brass and Percussion. The AOA recognizes the need to expand because of the talent and growth of our string students. They have come a long way and given all of us much to be proud of. Our organization also recognized the need to give more opportunity to our very talented winds, brass and percussion students while at the same time raising up more of these students and prepare them to play at the Festival Orchestra Level. Conducting the inaugural year of this group will be Brandon Keith Brown. Maestro Brown has distinguished himself as one of the countries leading young conductors. We are excited to have him and excited about the program he has selected. The program For Sinfonia will be Dance of the Tumblers by Rimsky Korsakov arranged by David Stone, Two South American Tangos by A.G. Villoldo and Matos Rodriguez arranged by Merle J. Isaac, Scherzo Movement III from Symphony No. 7 by Anton Bruckner arranged by Vernon Leidig, Sheep May Safely Graze by J.S. Bach arranged by Lucien Cailliet and Russian Sailor’s Dance by Reinhold Gliere arranged by Belisario Errante.
As always the programming for the Festival Orchestra will be outstanding. Steven Byess will be leading the Festival Orchestra in a performance of Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila by Mikhail Glinka, Finlandia by
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Symphony No 9, “From the New World” by Antonin Dvorak and the world premiere of the winning piece from our composition contest. We are also very excited about our conductor for the Consort Orchestra, Dr. David Eccles, who comes to us from Vandercook College where he is director of String Music Education and Orchestral Activities. Dr. Eccles is a frequent guest conductor all across the country so you definitely don’t want to miss this experience. You can read more about him and our other conductors at the AOA website. To our winds, brass and percussion teachers, please check our website for specific instrumentation, audition excerpts and audition procedures. Please also see a letter published in this edition of the Ala Breve detailing the audition procedures for Winds Brass and Percussion students for All State Orchestra. We absolutely cannot make this a success without your students and your support. If you have any questions at all about All State Orchestra or any of the audition or registration procedures, please do not hesitate to contact me.
musicalistening@gmail.com. Also new this year will be more scholarship funds available to students for attendance at the festival. If you are in need of financial aid please make use of these funds. The deadline is very strict, October 15th
, for
all financial aid applications. Please get those application in on time if you need assistance. Back again this year will be online registration for auditions and festival registration at our web site
www.alabamaorchestraassociation.org. Here you will find all the latest information for registrations and anything pertaining to AOA. Thank you to everyone especially our brilliant Webmaster Kenyon Wilson. Last year was our first year with online registration and it went off with out a hitch. We know though that there are things we can do better and we want to make the process as smooth and seamless for you as possible. If you have suggestions as to how we can improve the registration process or have comments about your experience with it last year please email those to me.
For interested exhibiters here are four potential exhibit locations in the Moody Music Building during the Festival. Exhibitors may set up any time after 4:00 on Thursday, February 7 and remain until the concert is over on Sunday afternoon, February 10. This time window is the available time, but exhibitors are not required to be present at all times and may choose to
use any periods within this time frame. There will be no reduction in fee for reduced usage. The AOA President, Clay McKinney, must receive all requests for exhibitor space via email at
musicalistening@gmail.com before January 31, 2013. Two prime locations are available in the lobby. There is a fee for each spot and use of space includes up to three 6’ tables. A $100 deposit is required to reserve a lobby spot. Two other locations in the building, closer to rehearsal rooms but with less space, will be made available at $100 each to the first two requestors. Use of these spaces includes one 6’ table each. For more information, please visit our website and click on the 2013 festival link. To all of our string teachers out there, I want us all to plan on attending the annual AMEA conference in January at the Renaissance Conference Center in Montgomery, January 10-12 2013. I know as orchestra teachers and performers we are busy teaching all week and playing many performances in the evenings and on weekends. This is our AOA, our voice in the state. We have a growing presence in our state and therefore a responsibility to continue the health of that growth. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you come and be apart of your professional organization. Let your voice be heard and your presence known. I am giving this reminder now because I know all of us are setting up our calendars and budgets for the year. Please make room in both for the conference. Our general business meeting during this time will be on Friday January 11th
3:15-5:30 in the conference
center. Please make plans to attend. Back by popular demand, is the reading session sponsored by J.W. Pepper. We will read through several titles for string orchestra so please bring your instrument to the conference. After our business meeting we will raffle off the titles. Entry in the raffle is free but you must attend the meeting to submit an entry. Very special to the conference this year will be the performance of the
Montgomery Performing Arts center Friday evening January 11th
Alabama Symphony in the . So, come to the meeting
and see everyone and stick around for the performance, it will be a wonderful evening. Thank you as always for all that you do to educate our young string players. It is pleasure serving as your president and I look forward to a fabulous year.
Sincerely Clay
August/September 2012
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