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.

The End of Showchoir Season

Showchoir season flew by in a rush of short weekends spent entirely at competitions and long rehearsals during which it took all my patience not to punch out the guy behind me. I'm still conflicted about the end of it all. It's great to have weekends back but it's sad to think I'll never be a part of a competitive showchoir again.

There were big ups to it: the friends made, the great performances, seeing other great shows, making finals, as well as the big downs: frustrating results, long rehearsals, getting mad at each other and making the director mad at us. Overall, it's definitely a commitment I'm glad I made (as well as an easy A!).

I think selfish as it may be, the highlight for me was my solo. It was awesome having so much support from our group and getting so many compliments from people about it. It was also great to see how much I improved over the course of the season as I got more comfortable with singing by myself in front of gymnasiums full of people every weekend.

Our home show was also a highlight for me. Meeting groups from all around the midwest and getting to feel like a pro showing people how to get to places around MY school was pretty awesome and totally worth being at school for 18 hours straight. The group we were assigned to look after was a good one and it was neat seeing them at shows after that because we had our own secret bond going on.

Showchoir (and marching band too) is definitely something NZ schools should look into, it's a lot of fun and I'm pretty sure a lot of high schoolers would love the opportunity to be like the people on "Glee." Personally I got a lot out of it and I'm going to miss it now that the competitions are done.

We still have two more performances this year and a whole new show to learn for them so it's an ongoing thing until graduation in June. Singing and dancing with the showchoir is an experience that I'm sure my grandchildren will hear about one day!

Jazz

This year I've been the guitarist for Fort High's jazz ensemble among my many involvements. We have taken two trips so far this year to perform at jazz festivals, one of them being an overnight trip to UW (University of Wisconsin) Lacrosse and another being a day trip to UW plaiteville. Both were amazing experiences and were great opportunities to see not only some great high school musicians but some world class professional jazz musicians as well.

We arrived at Lacrosse in the evening, from memory around 6-7pm and had the night to hang out in our hotel with the festival at the university being held the next day. Most of our group found our rooms and hit the pool within 2 minutes of arriving.

Our group made friends with a bunch of neat people from Badger High School in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. They were all there for the jazz festival as well. It was cool being able to meet new people and hang out in the spa and pool for a few hours with them. I probably wont see them again because we don't play them in any spring sports and they play different places to our jazz group for the rest of the year. Also they live about 2 hours drive away from us.

The festival itself was pretty exciting. There were high school bands (large groups) and combos (small groups of 4-7 people) playing in competition throughout the day and in the evening we had a concert from an amazing jazz trombone player named Wycliffe Gordon. The level of jazz played by a lot of the high school groups was very high and it was great being able to watch them and compete against them.

Our group took 2nd place for our class by about 2 points per judge (out of 100) and played extremely well. Our friends from Badger won their class (they were in a different one to us).

At the evening concert, the winner of each class played. The UW Lacrosse band also played and were pretty incredible for a college band. Wycliffe Gordon played with a bass player, drummer and piano player that he had met in high school. They were the most amazing group of musicians I have ever seen.

They played songs that they were making up on the spot without any sort of verbal communication, they just listened to each other and played. Wycliffe sang as well as making all sorts of impossible sounds from his trombone. He played a sort of funky rhythmic thing which sounded a little bit like someone beat boxing through an instrument. They were all very genuine and the music felt like a true expression of themselves. They were very natural and relaxed on stage and had this wonderful presence and sound radiating from them. It was absolutely incredible and totally inspiring.

The Plaiteville festival wasn't as exciting. We took third and most of the other high school bands weren't very interesting. We did get to see the village vanguard jazz orchestra from New York though which was awesome. They are one of ( if not the) best jazz group in the world today. They weren't as interesting in my opinion as Wycliffe Gordon but as a group they were extraordinary in their level of musicianship, Wycliffe just has an amazing and untrainable ability to pull in an audience that Vanguard lacks. Vanguard are incredible though, the history behind them is amazing (they've been playing with essentially the same members for a few decades now) and they are just world class musicians.

Playing in the jazz band here has been an extraordinary privilege that I've treasured. I've seen some fantastic players this year and we've had great times as a group. Some of the closest friends I have over here are from the jazz ensemble and the trips we take are really great for that level of bonding that doesn't always come from just hanging out with people at school or at home.

Winter and the Start of Showchoir Season

Winter has officially hit Wisconsin. The ground outside is white and the weather is around 30-35 (-1 to +2 celsius). I'm loving the snow, it's the first white winter I've ever really experienced. Along with the cold weather and beautiful snow everywhere comes showchoir season. We have had 3 shows so far with one of them being a competition. Music is proving to be a good way to see the state as between marching band back in fall, showchoir and jazz I have managed to get around a lot.

The competition we went to was in a town called Onalaska which is about 3 hours drive from Fort but took us about 5 hours to get to because it was snowing pretty heavily when we left. We stayed the night in a hotel there and competed the next day which was a saturday. It was neat hanging out with people from the group that I usually don't talk to much, overnight trips are great for bonding.

At Onalaska high school it was weird because they had a bunch of photographs and news clippings of ice hockey players, it's strange to think there are high schools here with their own ice hockey teams. We didn't make finals for the comp but it was a really great experience and we performed the best we had yet so can't complain much about that.

That same weekend we had a show at home as an exhibition type thing to show off the showchoir from Fort middle school and the two high school groups (We have an all girls showchoir as well as the one I'm in which is kind of like our second group and is made up of freshmen and sophomores). We were all super tired from the travel but we still performed it pretty well, things are always easier when you're performing at home.

Onalaska was a really good opportunity to see some great choirs perform and to hang with some awesome people from Fort. It snowed most of the time we were there so I got to enjoy that too. It's funny because I get really excited and roll around in the snow and make snow angels while everyone looks at me weird because they've had it all their lives. I love being the foreigner sometimes. Next post will be about our jazz trip to Lacrosse, Wisconsin which happened last weekend.