Norwell High School Music Department

Kudos to Dan Greene ‘07, Maggie Hynes ‘09 and Stephanie Sousa ‘09 for their contributions to the SEMSBA Senior Festival this weekend at Durfee High School in Fall River, MA.  For the uninitiated, SEMSBA works a lot like MMEA Southeastern Districts or All-State, but is a bit more of a local affair.  SEMSBA organizes an orchestra, chorus and band by means of auditions earlier in the year, and the conductors are teachers from the SEMSBA member schools.  There are two days of intense rehearsal followed by a performance that draws, if I had to guess, somewhere around 800-900 parents, friends and family.  It’s a great chance to meet other music students from the area and to play in a new place under a new conductor.

Bravo to all three of our students for their contributions to such a successful festival.  Time to start looking forward to SEMSBA Junior Festival in early May!

-Mr. O’Briant

Groups planning to perform at Small Ensemble Night:

1) Small Ensemble Night is still taking place on Monday, April 9th at 7pm.  That puts us ten days out!

2) With that in mind, you should already be shifting towards final polishing of your pieces.  As I often say in rehearsal, notes and rhythms should have long ago been tackled, and now you should be focusing simply on matters of ensemble and depth of expression.

3)  All of the ensembles still have to finish their 3 observations–check the board in the lobby to see where you stand and see me if you still need me to come watch you rehearse and/or offer helpful rehearsal hints!

Good luck!

-Mr. O’Briant

Five music department jazz students were kind enough to perform at tonight’s Fine Arts Festival in the NHS library.   Alex Bourque ‘07, David Neves ‘07, Tom Quinn ‘08, Jimmy Dow ‘08, and Nick Thomson ‘07 played to rave reviews for the large audience of students, family and community members who had come to admire the artwork of NHS’ talented, hardworking visual art students.  They were deservingly complimented on their creativity, their passion and their professionalism.  As always, they have my admiration and thanks.

Bravo, gentlemen!

-Mr. O’Briant

1)  All written work for Jazz Workshop is due on Thursday.  In keeping with our usual routine, I will not be accepting late work.  Take note that the questions I handed out yesterday and today are the last grade of the quarter!

2)   The full band rehearsal that was to have been on Wednesday is now on Thursday, due to the switched schedules.  It is still during period 2, and I’m still only calling down those people outlined in the announcements from yesterday.  If you come down to the band room and are not on that list, I’ll be sending you back to your class.

-Mr. O’Briant

1) Wednesday, there is a full band rehearsal scheduled for period 2.  The only people we’re pulling out of classes for that full rehearsal, however, are: D. Neves, M. Kwasnik, G. McGuire, D. Greene, C. Tobin, A. Bourque, K. Fanning, M. Pelletier, J. Brunjes, M. Brake, S. Sousa and M. Hanley.  Everyone else is expected to attend class as normal.

2) Small Ensemble Night is only two weeks away!  I’ve seen some encouraging work out of a number of the ensembles, but am waiting to see development from others.  I’ve deliberately put a lot of responsibility for this on your shoulders, students, and I know you can handle it.  Let’s kick it up a notch and make this a great evening!

-Mr. O’Briant

1) I’m so excited about the fact that Dave and Kelly got to perform at Symphony Hall.  It’s widely regarded as one of the greatest acoustical halls in the world (and it doesn’t look half bad, either!).  I’m really looking forward to hearing their reactions to the whole experience.

2) Three very valuable clinics today–the first was on the basic physics of microphone placement, which was mostly a review session but out of which I got some new ideas.  The second was on freeware, shareware and open-source software that we as teachers can use to address the national music education standards.  Lastly was brass and woodwind triage, where I learned a bunch of new things about instrument repair.  Everybody knows how little I like stopping rehearsals because of a non-functional instrument, so hopefully this new knowledge will help us maintain the instruments better and fix problems quicker when they arise.

3)  Overall, I was pretty impressed with my first MMEA Conference.  I got to meet some colleagues from other towns, spend a good amount of time talking over department matters with Mrs. D’Ambrosio and Mrs. Gagnon, was able to watch some of the best students in New England rehearse, and learned a lot of new stuff at the clinics!  More important than any of that, though, was the experience that our students got to have, working with other students and conductors who have devoted themselves to the art of music with everything they’ve got.  Bravo again to our students for their hard work and dedication!

-Mr. O’Briant

1) I really admire the students for their ability to do such long, concentrated rehearsal sessions.  It really says a lot about their focus, their love of playing and the extent of their self-discipline.

2) Participated in three clinics today:

• The first was on strategies and resources for digital audio recording.  We’ve been talking about that a lot and love the fact that this kind of recording allows us to have not only an artifact for assessment but would allow us to compile a record for a student that can show them their development as a musician from kindergarten through the 12th grade.
• The second was a clinic by the ubiquitous Jamey Aebersold, whose jazz improvisation books have made him a household name among teachers and jazz players.
• Lastly, I had the privilege of attending a session on score preparation and interpretation by composer Elliot del Borgo.  One of my first memories of being in high school band waaaaay back in the mid 90’s was of performing a del Borgo piece and having him critique us at a festival on it.  His clinic today was passionate, fun and a great in-person reminder of what composers want us conductors to do when we approach their scores.

Dave and Kelly will be performing tomorrow afternoon at Symphony Hall–I know they’ll be brilliant.  Wish them luck!

-Mr. O’Briant

Notes and news from the first day of the Massachusetts Music Educators’ Conference:

1) Kelly Fanning ‘08 and Dave Neves ‘07 are both performing admirably, Dave in the jazz ensemble and Kelly in the orchestra.  I had a chance to sit in on rehearsals of both groups, and am proud to say that they sound fantastic.  The conductors that MMEA has brought in are top notch, and the students seem to be having a great time getting to be around other driven, talented, hard-working young people.

2) I was very pleased to meet up with Mrs. Gagnon and Mrs. D’Ambrosio, two of our fearless and creative music teachers at the Cole and Vinal Schools.  It’s so great that we’ve all been afforded the opportunity by the Norwell Schools to attend this kind of an event, the largest gathering of music educators, student performers and clinicians in Massachusetts.

3) I attended a performance by the 5th-grade Honor Choir from Needham Public Schools and the Amherst Regional High School Wind Ensemble, both of whom were very good.  The choir sung very well, at my count, in six different languages and in as much as three-part harmony!  The Amherst Wind Ensemble is a neat model–an audition-only group with 37 (I believe) students spread out almost perfectly evenly between all four high school grades.
4) I also had the opportunity to attend clinics by Livingston Taylor, a very passionate singer/songwriter and professor at Harvard and the Berklee School of Music, and a great clinic from the folks over at Sibelius, who have teamed up with the fine people at Pro Tools and M-Audio to create a whole host of really promising new music education software.  I came away from these clinics with some great ideas about reaching out to students and about ways to use technology to help teach ear training, music theory, composition and sequencing.

I’m looking forward to another productive and exciting day tomorrow!

-Mr. O’Briant

1) Thinking ahead to the fourth quarter: we’re going to be losing a few of our seniors to internships in the fourth quarter.  I’ve invited them to continue to attend out-of-school full rehearsals and perform with us, since they’re a part of our family, whether they’re interning or not.  We owe a lot to our seniors, so if you see one who is leaving for an internship, take a little time to thank them.

2) Thinking ahead to next year: yes, we still have concerts to go this year–at the very least, Small Ensemble Night, the Spring Concert, the Memorial Day parade and Commencement.  We’ll be preparing for these in earnest through the end of the year.  We also, however, have to look into filling some holes that will be exposed next fall.   I’ll be talking to a few students over the next week and a half or so, but would like to make this offer to the entire department–if you’re interested in moving to tuba or french horn, please see me.  I’ll make sure you have the tools and the help to make the change successfully, but your interest needs to be there first!  Thanks.

3) Expect some reading work and some open-response questions about composers and composing for band on Thursday and/or Friday.

-Mr. O’Briant

1) Welcome back from the long weekend!  This is sort of an unusual week, given the looming presence of MCAS and the All-State festival, but we’ll make the best of it.  Expect to be reading some new music, deciding on music for the spring concert and beginning to hash out music for Graduation.

2) Seniors–you’re exempt from the final, provided you carry an average of B+ or above for the year.  This policy is consistent with the NHS Parent/Student Handbook.  If you have an internship during 4th quarter, you will be exempt from a final if you’re carrying a B+ average through the end of the 3rd quarter.

3)  All other students–we’ll be reviewing, over the rest of the year, all of the things you’ll need to know for the Symphonic Band final exam.  90 percent of what we’ll be going over has already come up in rehearsal; the rest will simply be my filling in the gaps.  We’ll be doing it one musical topic at a time, typically in one session each week.  The review sheets I’ll be handing out each week will, when all gathered at the end, serve as your study guide–so take careful notes on these and do not lose them.  I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about any topic that comes up, either during or outside of class.  Good luck!