Solo/Ensemble

Solo/ensemble is a music competition which I had to do as part of my music classes this year. I competed in our district solo/ensemble competition which involved us and I think 3 other schools as part of a percussion ensemble made of of percussionists from the concert band (concert band is what the marching band does when it isn't marching season). The competition took place at my school in the auditorium on a Saturday. There was also a separate district solo/ensemble specifically for jazz ensembles which took place at East Troy High School which, if I remember correctly, is about a half hour bus ride from Fort.

Basically, the way solo/ensemble works is you perform at your allotted time, either as a solo act or as part of an ensemble. You play a piece picked out from a list of pieces decided on by the competition authorities at one of three class levels A, B or C. the judges get a copy of the score of the piece you are playing and they fill out a score card and give you an overall rating, the best of which being a *1 if you're competing in class A  or a 1 if you're in class B or C. Anyone who gets a *1 at district is eligible to compete at the state competition. They also give you a brief verbal briefing on how they think you played and what you could improve on and you get to keep your score sheet which they write comments on as well.

Both the percussion ensemble and the jazz ensemble played class A pieces, for percussion we only had to play one piece but for the jazz competition we had to play a set of 3 pieces. Both groups achieved a *1 rating, so I went to state with both of those groups.

The state competition was held at the University of Wisconsin's Whitewater campus on the day of prom. The  Whitewater campus is about a 20 minute drive from Fort. Percussion ensemble performed relatively early in the morning (about 8.45) while jazz was in the afternoon. Both groups again performed well and both received a 1 rating which is the best rating you can achieve at state. The judges comments ranged from praise about our playing to a comment about our professional conduct which was reassuring.

State and district solo/ensemble competitions were interesting challenges and it was exciting to achieve so well in them. Mr. Cook the director of the band and the jazz bands works us hard and solo/ensemble was a good chance to prove to ourselves that we are working at a high level. The Fort Atkinson High School music department really is one of the best in Wisconsin and I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to become so heavily involved with it.

"Winter Ball" and Prom

I just realized there are two dances that I have forgotten to mention so I'm going to talk about them in this post.

Winter ball actually ended up happening in spring and was aptly re-titled as "Spring Fling." It was relatively entertaining, I had a lot of stuff going on at the time and so was pretty disorganized about it. I bought my clothes during the day from the local goodwill store (which incidentally had the exact outfit I wanted) and went with a friend of mine which we decided midway during the week with the dance that weekend. I'm glad I went to winter ball but I was pretty stressed out, we had the district music solo/ensemble competition the day of the dance so I was pretty tightly wound with that experience, I competed with a percussion ensemble and jazz ensemble but I'll talk about that in its own post.

Prom took place a few weeks after winter ball (I'm not entirely sure on time frame, possibly a month-month and a half between the two.) I went with another friend of mine, she asked me so that made things easier for me. I had to rent a tux for that one but I looked pretty spiffy so I didn't complain too much. I had a black tux with a silver vest and silver bow-tie. Hannah (my date) wore a purple dress which was absolutely gorgeous (may attach photos later).

Prom is run by the junior class ( the ones that are in their 2nd to last year of high school) and they chose for the theme to be "The Lion King." They decorated the stage in the auditorium like pride rock and we had the grand march where each pair gets announced and walks across stage in front of everyone, it was all very exciting. They had music from "The Lion King" playing in the auditorium during the grand march too which was awesome.

Before the dance we went out to eat at a lovely little place just outside of Fort called Cold Spring Inn. It's an old restaurant/bar with a really nice homey feel to it. Unfortunately we had some car trouble so we ended up being a little later than we first planned on being to the high school. We got there on time for the grand march though so it all worked out.

I had a great time at prom hanging out with people, it was one of the best nights I've had all year. It was kind of similar to homecoming in feel, generally just a lot of people having a good time in the middle of the school. I should mention that on the day of prom we had state solo/ensemble which we qualified for at the afore-mentioned district competition. I wasn't as stressed out after that day though, we got really good results at state, which again I'll discuss in its own post.

Prom was great, we got cute little tickets which hopefully I'll have photos of at some stage that were basically little wooden discs with a neat lion head thing printed on them. Prom was an awesome American experience which I'd recommend to anyone who may ever get the chance to go (do it at least once).

Spring Play

During the spring I not only joined an athletic team but I joined an entirely different team of players. I auditioned for the school's spring play which this year was "You Can't Take It With You", a very funny comedy about an eccentric New York family who, through an unlikely marriage, are forced to play host to a snooty, high society family.

I was cast as the boisterous Russian ballet teacher, Boris Kolenkhov. My character is virtually part of the family, often turns up unannounced and is very opinionated, especially when it comes to ballet. I had a lot of fun playing him and received many positive comments about the show.

The whole process took roughly two months (at least as I remember it) and was very exciting. I haven't had much of a chance to do theatre for a long time so this was a welcome return for me to the stage lights. There wasn't too much drama behind the scenes, which was also a welcome occurrence and all in all everyone was a joy to work with.

We played four shows, including a sunday matinee, and rehearsed several times a week. During performance week I had to give up baseball to fulfill my theatrical commitments but it wasn't much of an issue. Our performances all went smoothly and everyone really stepped it up when opening night rolled around. I was extremely proud of all of our performances.

The cast and crew of the spring play became like family to me. We spent so much time together: fighting, sharing in frustrations, working and having fun. We grew a lot as an organisation and I'm going to miss people from the play just a little bit more than most other people. It was an awesome experience and I'm sure that it's not the last I'll see of my fellow cast members.

Baseball season

Spring came with warm weather and an all new athletic season. I decided to go out for baseball, a sport which I had no prior experience of and really didn't understand very much at all. The coach of the varsity (best) team was nice enough to give me a spot on the squad for the season and so began what could be the only season of baseball I ever experience.

The guys on the team were all very accepting of me and it was easy to assimilate into despite being vastly under skilled by comparison. I decided to become an outfielder and thus practiced largely with the outfield team and coach who are an interesting bunch of people.

Results-wise the season started relatively poorly, we seemed to pull wins from every non-conference (not important) match we played but couldn't salvage anything from our conference (very important) fixtures. About mid-season we found our groove and picked up a few wins where they counted. We progressed to play-offs but unfortunately lost our first play-off game narrowly. I was somewhat glad to see the season end there as at that point we were in our last week of school and I didn't really want to be tied up with baseball until graduation.

I improved a lot over the season and finished with the ability to actually hit the ball out of the infield during practise as well as being able to catch fly balls without getting hit in the head (which by the way happened 3 times). The coaches decided to give me the most improved player award which meant a lot to me and when I come home will go up next to the other two trophies I have picked up in my 13 year athletic career (I believe the other two are a most valuable player award for rugby when I was 7 and a most valuable player award for the second XI hockey team which I got when I was 16).

Baseball was a really valuable American experience for me and will be something I will definitely remember and cherish. I'm more than grateful to the coaches and to the team for taking me on as a know-nothing liability and giving me the opportunity to learn such a fun game and tradition.