Keeping Tempo May 2015

Keeping Tempo Volume 6, Number 4, May 2015

YOBC Caps Season with First-Ever Pops Concert

Inside this issue: Student Spotlight: Samay Ruparelia

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Conductors’ Notes: Make the Most of Your Practicing

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Three Surprising Lessons I Have Learned From My Students

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YOBC Alumnus Dan Kassel’s Musical Journeys

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YOBC Advisors Instrumental in ACO’s First Overseas Adventure

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YOBC’s SIC Program Recognized by Bristol Township School District Superintendent

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Important Dates: 

May 16–17: Auditions for New Students

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June 6: Concerto Soloist Competition

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June 20: Registration deadline

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September 12: Orientation & Curtain-Raiser

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September 13: Fall Rehearsals begin

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September 20: Parents’ Meetings

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September 27: Tour Parent Meeting; Deadline to sign up for International Tour

The 2014–15 musical season ended on a high note for YOBC with its firstever Pops Concert on May 2. The concert was held at Delaware Valley University’s Life Sciences Auditorium, a newly remodeled venue in Doylestown with world-class acoustics. The concert featured YOBC’s Advanced Division ensembles—Fanfare Winds and Symphony Orchestra—and welcomed a dozen or so returning alumni as well as some local professionals and music teachers. The Brass Ensemble opened the show with an arrangement for the group

by YOBC French hornist Stephen Hopkins.

The concert presented music from Broadway, Hollywood, and even

some jazz medleys. Special performers included Justin Shaw on piano, Neel Shah on oboe, and a trumpet trio—Paul Hutchings, Michael Sun, and John Wagner—for the “Bugler’s Holiday.”

At a reception prior to the event, YOBC recognized volunteers, past and present Board members, music teachers, and alumni parents who have been instrumental in the success of the organization.

The audience enjoyed the concert as much as the alumni who returned to play.

Alto saxo-

phonist Dayle Magida, a 2008 graduate summed it up: “Playing as an alumna in the YOBC Pops concert was an amazing experience for me! I had a rush of great memories and enjoyed seeing old friends as well as my wonderful former conductors. The level of talent in this group is awe-inspiring. They could easily be mistaken for college or professional-level musicians! I’m so proud to be an alumna of YOBC.”

tudent

potlight: Samay Ruparelia

Samay Ruparelia is a fifth grader who currently attends Pearl S. Buck Elementary in the Neshaminy School District. He joined YOBC in fall of 2014, playing cello in Prima Strings. During the Practice-A-Thon last October, Samay was the top practicer in his ensemble.

Samay first heard about YOBC when he was in fourth grade and his orchestra director, Andrew Tanicello, gave out flyers for YOBC auditions. Samay wanted to join YOBC because he wanted to learn advanced and more challenging music than his school orchestra offered.

Samay started playing the cello in third grade, which is when you can start a string instrument at Neshaminy. When asked why he picked the cello, Samay said “I knew I wanted to join the orchestra but wasn’t sure which instrument to play until our school held an instru-

mental assembly where the teachers played each instrument. I picked the cello because of the low and mellow sound of the instrument.”

In the Neshaminy School District, Samay was selected to perform in the District Elementary Music Festival (DEMF) Orchestra in fourth and fifth grades. DEMF selects students from all eight district elementary schools.

Students who show outstanding achievement in their respective advanced orchestras are selected to perform in DEMF. Besides cello, Samay also plays alto saxophone in the Pearl Buck band, and he will be performing with the combined band in their school spring concert. He also plays piano/ keyboard. “I love to play the orchestra pieces on the keyboard, which can simulate different instruments.”

When Samay is not playing music, he enjoys biking, playing tennis,

and watching movies. In the future, Samay plans to continue the cello, saxophone, and piano. He also wants to take guitar lessons and audition for BCMEA. Of course, it is clear, Samay will definitely continue playing music.

Conductors’ Notes: Make the Most of Your Practicing I’d like to talk about one thing important for all students—practicing!

How many times have you heard “Can you make sure to look at that spot?” or “Practice that before next week!” but never received specific and helpful instructions? Here are my four tips for better practicing.

Create your routine Do you work best in the early morning or later at night? Do you like to come right home from school and practice or wait until you unwind? It is important to find the best time and place for an effective practice session.

Create a space with limited distractions, and one that you enjoy using.

Use your tools We’ve all heard about the metronome and tuner, but are you using other tools? Try recording a video of yourself to check your embouchure or bow placement. Use an audio recorder to see if what you think you are playing is really what’s coming out of your Page 2

instrument. Watch videos to discover past performers’ interpretations of your piece. There are many possibilities!

Do it again—but thoughtfully!

Repetition is one of the keys to efficient practicing but there is a catch— you have to think about it! This sounds like a no-brainer, but we play without truly listening to ourselves all the time. If you have a tricky section that you want to do five times, make sure you know exactly what you are trying to improve. Are you going to bump up your metronome tempo? Will you try to make your phrasing more expressive?

Add a little bit of chance and fun to your practicing with technical spots you need to do again and again. I have a bunch of “practice tools” on my stand; for example, I often will roll a die to see how many times I should do a passage.

Another trick I like is to grab five pennies (or dimes or quarters if you are feeling fancy) and put them on

my stand. I pick a very short, difficult passage, and each time I play it correctly I get to move a penny across to the other side. Each time I make a mistake I move a penny back, and then I think about how I will fix it next time and try again. Sometimes having a physical reminder and a tangible goal really helps practicing.

Set achievable goals You are bound to feel frustrated if you set out to learn your whole folder of band music or that entire new concerto in a day. Set small, achievable goals and (here is the most important part) have a goal or mission in mind for each practice session. Maybe you want to focus on just the first 16 bars, or work on getting the second movement more lyrical, or become more consistent on all the starred passages in your orchestra music. Whatever it is, have your goal in mind, practice thoughtfully, and you will see results!

—Erica Cherry, Coach YOBC Fanfare Woodwind Ensemble Keeping Tempo

Three Surprising Lessons I Learned From My Students After months of planning, study, rehearsals, practice, and anticipation, yet another YOBC season is over in a final flurry of activity and excitement. I will miss the students over summer vacation. Most will return next season. Others will be leaving for college but will return to say hello or send an email to keep in touch. Some I will never see again.

Saying goodbye is always hard, but all the students leave me with special gifts that I will never forget: memories that inspire and life lessons they teach me. This year I learned three surprising lessons from YOBC students.

Lesson #1: Students want to know that I believe in them.

There are many things I need to give my students. I need to choose goals and teaching materials that are both challenging and achievable. I need to provide the tools and instruction they need to reach those goals. I need to encourage and moti-

Volume 6, Number 4, May 2015

vate them and I need to be honest about letting them know about how they are doing. But more than anything else, I need to let them know that I believe they can be successful.

Lesson #2: Students are interested in more than what I say.

In fact, many times students are most interested in the things that I do not say. I may be focused on teaching a particular musical concept, but my students are keenly interested in whether I treat them with respect, fairness, and genuine concern. Teaching music—even for a music teacher—can be a secondary lesson.

Lesson #3: The person who learns the most can be the teacher.

We tend to think of education primarily as information flowing from the teacher to the student. I have learned that this is not true. The

longer I teach, the more I learn to appreciate how much I can learn from my students. Lessons in determination, humility, openness, patience, and understanding are all things that I have learned from my students. Learning is a twoway street.

So now, I begin a season of planning for all the lessons we hope to teach YOBC students next year. There will be rehearsals galore, fabulous guest artists, exciting master classes, rousing concerts, meaningful opportunities to serve others, and trips to see the amazing Philadelphia Orchestra in concert. As I am planning the details of all these experiences, I will smile to myself in anticipation of those unplanned eye-opening lessons my students will teach me every week at YOBC. Have a great summer. And next fall…let the learning begin!

—Colleen Sweetsir YOBC Executive Director

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YOBC Alumnus Dan Kassel’s Musical Journeys and from live performance of solo cello looping. All the sounds on his albums were produced on the cello by bowing, plucking, and tapping on different areas of the instrument to create percussive sounds.

Dan’s music has been inspired by his travels to southeast Asia where he has been for the last several months on an extended honeymoon with his wife Kaitlin. Dan says, Dan in Hội An, Vietnam, with his mini travel cello.

“I couldn’t bear the idea of and sounds. He hopes to release the leaving without a cello. To remedy album by the beginning of next the situation, I purchased a 1/8th year. sized ‘mini cello’ to travel with. After Dan and Kaitlin planned to rea little time, I was able to adjust my turn to New Jersey in mid-June, fingers to playing on the smaller inhowever their trip was cut short by strument, and now I’m able to play it the devastating earthquake in Neas efficiently as I would my full-sized pal where they were trekking. After one.” a number of days in the American Dan has been inspired embassy in Kathmandu, they were by eastern modes and clasevacuated by a Canadian C-17 sical Hindustani/Arabian transport and headed home at the music for some time. “The beginning of May. bending of notes and the Dan hopes to book performdevotional essence of this ances throughout the tri-state area music speaks to me for the summer and fall. He has deeply,” he says. During been a mainstay performer at World his travels he has been Cafe Live in Philadelphia, and looks able to further harness forward to future performances this sound in southeast there.

Asia, especially in CamboCome winter, Kaitlin and Dan dia, Nepal, and India. “The plan to build a first-ever Creative Cambodian tro, a very simArts Studio in Hopewell, NJ. The ple 1–3 stringed bowed Hopewell Creative Arts Studio will instrument, has been inbe a collaborative effort of Dan and spiring in developing my Kaitlin, who is a talented and sucear for traditional folk mucessful painter.

The studio will feasic, as has the Nepali ture a gallery space, a small persarangi, another tradiformance area, and room for private tional stringed instrucello lessons and workshops, screen ment.” printing workshops, and yoga/ Dan has been learning healing workshops. from local musicians along Dan says, “I have very fond YOBC alumna Claire Buhr competed in the Wash- the way, and filming his memories of my days playing with solo and collaborative efington, DC marathon March 14, 2015. Claire, a YOBC, and it’s really nice knowforts in scenic places 2011 graduate of YOBC, graduated from Bucknell ing that I continue to be rememthroughout southeast Asia.

University this spring. Later this summer she will bered and supported by you all.” If begin a marketing research job in New Jersey with He is currently writing you are interested in hearing or new music for a third alNeilsen, a leading global information and measpurchasing Dan’s music, visit urement company. bum and picking up a lot of https://dankassel.bandcamp.com/. inspiration from the sights Recently YOBC alumnus Dan Kassel was selected as a finalist in the International Songwriting Contest. This contest accepts just 2% of 18,000 entries from 113 countries. Dan’s piece “Moonslice” was a finalist in the instrumental category and received an honorable mention from the judges.

Dan’s work has also been recognized locally by WXPN whose staff have chosen him as a Philly-local pick and featured his music on the air.

John Vettese of the station’s blog “The Key” describes him as “a schooled and imaginative cellist who doesn’t want to be limited by the options cello players typically face. ...The richness of his sound is impressive coming from a solo performer, but it’s also rooted in simplicity.”

Dan’s work has garnered media attention from the success of two albums, Bloom and Tribes Forgotten,

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Keeping Tempo

YOBC Advisors Instrumental in ACO’s First Overseas Adventure As I write this almost exactly two months after their wildly successful Spring concert with Yannick NézetSéguin, I can report that Philadelphia’s All City Orchestra performed magnificently. I attend these concerts regularly as a guest of their 10-year Music Director, Don Liuzzi (Principal Timpanist, Philadelphia Orchestra and former YOBC Board Member). Shortly after the concert I wrote a letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer praising what these students have accomplished, despite a multi-year effort by politicians to cut the 70-year program due to “budget shortfalls.”

Over the decades this program has produced eight Philadelphia Orchestra members and, more importantly, has impacted young lives in the exact same way that YOBC and the regional in-school music programs impact our own children.

Two weeks after that concert, Don called me with what he called a “crazy question”: Could I find a way to send 115 of these amazing young performers to Italy in just three months – an experience of a lifetime for kids who could never afford to tour in Europe – with absolutely no preplanning and not a dollar raised to date, and would you be willing to help me?

Of course I said “yes,” despite knowing that it takes YOBC 18+ months to plan such tours for our own students. Guess I’m as crazy as Don! Those who know me realize I never back down from a challenge that has the potential to produce such a tremendous reward. I immediately called YOBC’s tour direc-

tors, Monica and Gerardo Konig, and they set to work. In just over a week, the Konigs (working with our Italy-based tour company, F.O.G.) replicated much of the amazing Italy tour that we conducted in 2014. In late June, 2015, 115 All City students will travel to Rome, Umbria, and Tuscany – with five performance venues (including a performance on the same main piazza in Florence where we performed), nonstop flights to and from Rome for musicians and staff, hotel commitments for each city, and the commitment of a professional touring company to manage it all. I was, and remain, astounded at what Gerardo and Monica were able to accomplish in just over a week of work.

Then another astounding thing happened. Don Liuzzi managed to raise $330,000 from a few major Philadelphia arts supporters in just over 10 days. Now THAT is highperformance fundraising. I volunteered to manage the project for Don, and with the creation of an implementation team that includes Joseph Conyers (Assistant Principal Bass of the Philadelphia Orchestra who has agreed to advise YOBC’s Board), the Italian Consulate in Philadelphia, and several active and retired Philadelphia school music teachers, we are pulling together the elements to make this trip happen.

So why is YOBC doing this? Several reasons, actually. First, doing

this work serves as an extension of our Students in Concert mission to school districts and music students who need critical support to achieve their musical aspirations. Second, because Don Liuzzi asked us to assist. You may not know that Don was personally involved in so much of what we’ve been able to accomplish these past few years with the Philadelphia Orchestra. And finally, because by doing this work, YOBC as an organization will be recognized across the region as a powerful agent of change in arts education. We may finally begin shedding our “bestkept secret” label by getting involved where we can make a meaningful difference. A fundraising flier, being distributed across the large-donor base in Philadelphia shows YOBC in quite good company as we partner with the sponsoring organizations shown below.

I invite you to attend the free “send off” concert for the All City Orchestra on June 18 at the Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center, to hear this remarkable assemblage of young musical talent as they embark on that trip of a lifetime.

—Joe Hochreiter, President YOBC Board of Directors

EMPOWERING

MUSICIANS ENGAGING COMMUNITIES Volume 6, Number 4, May 2015

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252 Hollow Branch Lane Yardley, PA 19067 Email: info.yobc@gmail.com

yobc.org

The YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF BUCKS COUNTY, Pennsyl vania (YOBC) was founded in 1991 with the sponsorship and support of Bucks County Community College . Its mission is to create opportunitie s for young musicians to achieve artistic excellence through enriching classical musical experiences. In 23 seasons the organization has grown fro m a single, 60-member ensemble to 16 ensembles with over 240 young musician s.

YOBC’s SIC Program Recognized by Bristol Township School District Superintendent Nearly four years ago, the YOBC Board of Directors decided to initiate an outreach program for students in need. The Bristol Township School District had nearly cut its school music program a couple years prior, and the program that remained was in need of assistance.

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YOBC partnered with Keith Krelove (yes, the son of our own Karl Krelove, and a YOBC alumnus) and Chris Gerhart, music teachers in the district, to create the Students in Concert program in Bristol Township. In the three years that followed, YOBC has had a direct impact on the musical lives of nearly 150 middleschool band students, providing sectional instruction, instruments (through Musicopia), coaching, and a capstone concert each season.

In recognition of YOBC’s efforts, Board President Joe Hochreiter was invited to the April School Board planning meeting to be presented the Superintendent’s Award in appreciation for all that YOBC has done to support their music program and its students.

YOBC Clarinet Ensemble performs at Neshaminy Mall while the Brass Ensemble looks on from the balcony.

Keeping Tempo