Concert is Tonight!

The big Spring Concert is tonight!  Yours portly busted his butt yesterday in his planning periods and after school to get everything looking good.

Here was the stage in our gym at around 7:15 AM yesterday (leave a comment if you notice the unusual detail in this picture):

Spring Concert 2024 Setup Before

And here it is around 5:30 PM, shortly before I left work:

Spring Concert 2024 Setup After

Granted, I didn’t work on it continuously during that time, as I had classes, but in total, it was probably four hours of setup.  I had help from some colleagues moving the big stuff and the drums, and some Middle School students setup the lighting (not pictured, but you can see the light controller on the bottom right in front of the stage).  Overall, the setup yesterday—including leaving copies of students’ music on their music stands and pianos—should make today a bit less stressful.

Rock on!

—TPP

Concert Week!

Yours portly is nearly through the gauntlet.  Tomorrow night my students have their annual Spring Concert.

It’s shaping up to be a good one.  We’re working in a lot of classics, as well as some newer tunes.  I’m particularly excited about the closing number for the concert.

Yours portly will be spending the bulk of today and tomorrow setting up sound equipment and instruments (when I’m not teaching classes).  I’ve gotten a lot better at doing this setup over the years, but it’s still quite time-consuming, and I require a good deal of focus to get it done.  That’s sometimes hard to achieve in a school full of students!

So I’m hoping to be getting in early the next couple of days to make sure everything is good to go!

Rock on,

TPP

SubscribeStar Saturday: Spring Concert 2023 Postmortem

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

My Middle and High School Music Ensembles had their big Spring Concert this past Monday, 27 March 2023.  Before their performances, my little school’s Dance and Choral classes gave their performances, so it was a jam-packed night of arts and entertainment.  The visual arts were part of the fun, too, with displays of students’ artwork.

It was a long day, but extremely worthwhile.  Few things bring me as much joy as hearing my students share their talents confidently and comfortably.

In the tradition of this blog and my music program, I’m going to breakdown the evening, focusing particularly (and naturally) on my two ensembles and their pieces.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Lazy Sunday CLX: Fine Arts Festival

It’s been a lazy weekend here at Portly Manor, as I’ve been recovering from a very long week of Fine Arts Festival-related activities.  It’s been pretty glorious being in bed by 9:30 PM and sleeping in until approximately whenever Murphy barks me awake to the use the bathroom, which is roughly around 6:30 AM.  I still need to file my taxes, so I’ll be working on that annual ritual of tedium later today.

For this week’s Lazy Sunday, however, it made sense to look back at this past week’s Fine Arts Festival, and to celebrate the achievements of the students involved.  I’ve also worked in a post about Son of Sonnet’s new Locals page:

Now to break the fast with my chubby dog, drink some coffee, and lazily get ready for church… and taxes.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Concert Time!

Tonight my students have their big Spring Concert.  It’s one of the two busiest days of my year (the other being the Christmas Concert), as there is much to be done to prepare.

The students are well-rehearsed and ready to play.  Today will be spend putting instruments on stage, and making sure everything is mic’d up properly.  That’s not difficult to do, per se, but it is quite time-consuming.

There are also a million little details to get sorted:  making sure extra copies of music are run off; ensuring that cables are taped down or covered to prevent tripping; checking the sound levels; making sure students know how to get on and off the stage efficiently; etc.  It’s a lot to do, but the payoff is worth it.

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