have fun during the process. Enjoy the time you will spend with your students, because there will be a lot of time spent together.


Receiving your acceptance notification for the invitational performance will set many different wheels in motion almost immediately. Work and planning will need to begin on many different fronts, including music selection, scheduling extra rehearsals and sectionals, a meeting with your booster organization (or a full parents meeting if there is not a booster organization), and travel arrangements, just to name a few. Lets go over these in order!


First, there are some publicity issues that you need to be taken care of. Before you do anything else, get word out to your school board and superintendent. Inform them of the honor and how prestigious this performance will be for the students, the school, and the school system. After doing this need to have a responsible band booster or parent contact the local media. Provide information concerning the event, the location, the date, and especially ways that donations can be made to help make this trip a reality for the students. You might include a picture of some of the students as well as a quote or two from your school administrator.


A parent or booster meeting should be scheduled as soon as the letter of acceptance is received. Be aware that you are going to have questions concerning cost, educational validity of such a performance, is this trip required, will absences be excused, etc. Make sure that you have an agenda prepared for this meeting and email this agenda to the parents before the meeting. You should have already begun contacting and taking bids from different educational travel companies before the meeting. While you won’t have set figures, you can offer some preliminary figures. Also have some ideas for fundraising to help offset costs (and have a parent already in mind to head the fundraising effort). Consider these questions: a) will the students have individual fundraising accounts or one lump sum divided between all members participating, b) how many fundraisers will be scheduled, c) will corporate sponsors be approached. If you as the director do an exceptional job of selling the importance of this performance, you should have parents eager to help in any way possible.


Now it is time to schedule all rehearsals, sectionals, everything that would be considered as additional to the regular school class meetings. If you received an invitation to a performance for the following year, you will have the summer to consider. I have seen many directors make the mistake of using the entire summer for rehearsals, only to have both parents and students burned out on the process


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before school has even started. For both of my ensembles performances at the Midwest Clinic (2003 and 2008) I scheduled no rehearsals over the summer until the week before the new school year was to begin. I had a 2 - hour brass and percussion rehearsal, followed by a 2 - hour woodwind rehearsal, both on the same morning and finishing before noon. This rehearsal was nothing more than a sight- reading session. The rest of the day was spent at a local amusement park with the entire band. This allowed for the band members to get to now each other better, and also served as a great kick-off for what was to lie ahead. Make your schedule of rehearsals complete, concise, and do not vary from it. This allows your parents to make whatever arrangements necessary to have their children in attendance. Be sure to include in this schedule the attendance requirements and consequences of absences. Keep in mind that life happens, and that many students, especially middle school, cannot drive and are at the mercy of their parents.


Once your schedule of rehearsals is complete, be sure to get a copy to your principal for approval. Once it has been approved, be sure to give a copy to your school secretary. She can intercept phone calls from parents (is there band rehearsal today?) and save you a lot of time and heartache on the phone! Your next move is to email a copy of the schedule to the parents, have the schedule added to the band as well as the school web sight, and even to put a hard copy in each of the musicians hands.


You should now be ready to begin your music selection and programming for the performance. First you should acquaint yourself with any genre, duration of selections, ability level, composer, publisher, total allotted performance times, or any other requirement or stipulations placed on your performance. Some venues have extensive and very specific requirements placed on performing groups and you need to be prepared to meet those requirements. Don’t be afraid to contact various publishers. If you inform them of your performance and ask if they have any recommendations of new pieces available. Publishing companies are always more than happy to help.


Give some thought to possibly commissioning a selection for the performance. If the funds are available this is a wonderful way to make a contribution to our profession!


Many directors find themselves fantasizing over what their ensemble could play at an invitational performance. Sometimes, those fantasies can cloud their judgment and could lead to the selection of literature that the ensemble cannot perform to the level that a


knowledgeable audience will expect. Be smart when you select music and program your performance. A variety of quality literature with slightly varying ability levels will be your best bet. True, you do want to choose a featured selection that will showcase the strengths of your ensemble, but there are other musical areas that should be explored. Let’s suppose that you have approximately 30 minutes for your performance. A program with five selections (possibly six) would accommodate this requirement. I have found it best to program a variety of selections to create a musically satisfying as well as enjoyable performance for the students and their audience. They are (in no particular order): a fanfare of sorts, a traditional American march (anything King, Sousa, Fillmore, Alexander, etc.), a commissioned work (if available), a guest conductor or performer selection, a light selection (Mancini works well), and your feature selection. If you are like 90% of all of the band directors around I am sure that you have saved programs from past performances that you have attended. These would be a tremendous help in your programming process.


Next item in your preparation process is planning the trip itself! Often times you can relinquish the ground work to another responsible and eager parent, but be sure to set parameters. For 18 years of my teaching experience I always used the same educational travel consultants, Kaleidoscope Adventures, for all of my travel needs. It is very important that you develop a long lasting relationship with a consultant that will anticipate your needs and concerns. Questions like “does our lodging have indoor corridors”, “will there be a security guard hired specifically for our group”, “what meals are included and where are these meals”, “what will be our mode of transportation”, “what will the total cost of the package be”, and numerous other questions will not only need to be answered satisfactorily but also anticipated by your travel representative. Pass these concerns on to your parent in charge, and stipulate a weekly meeting with this parent to discuss items achieved, items pending, and other logistics. Remember that you are ultimately responsible for the safety and well – being of your students. Do not let anything fall through the cracks, and as always, keep your administrator “in the know”!


As you near the performance date it is time to prepare a very detailed itinerary for your students and especially your parents. Be sure to secure all of the necessary field trip paperwork and forms from your district. Also, it is extremely important to have a completed, notarized medical form on every student. Be sure to make multiple copies of the entire set of Continued on page 30...


August/September 2012


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