Current Schedule

Well, we’ve made it through 4 straight weekends of Sumner HS Band activities this month and have done a great job each week. To remind you of what we’ve been doing this month:

• March 1st Saturday Jazz Big Band Dance at the Phase 1 Commons
• March 8th Saturday Pep Band performance at the 4A Girls BB State Championship
• March 15th Saturday Symphonic Bands at the Valley Region Band Contest
  - and -
• March 22nd Saturday Jazz Competition at the Commencement Bay Jazz Festival 

It was a big challenge with every week being something different and we’re very proud of your efforts at each event - we consider it a very successful month. Thank you again for your hard work. Saturday was for many students their first-ever Jazz Competition and the bottom-line is that we learned a lot - through listening to other groups, through our performances, and through our excellent clinics. Both groups had the outstanding clinician Brian Kirk work with them and he was fantastic in all respects - everyone (including me) learned a lot through his instructions and his stories. While neither group qualified for the evening finals, we had a record number of 11 outstanding soloists in the combined 2 groups. As Mr. Kirk said to us in the clinic, they all did a great job and projected themselves and their jazz improv solos so well (the rest of each band also did a great job in supporting them and doing a great job as well). The soloists (who all earned medals for their fine efforts) included:

• Jazz B (5):
• Jonas Lysne - Piano
• Rodrigo Perez - Drums
• Fionna Rivera - Bass
• Ethan Svancara - Alto Sax
• Daniel Wang - Trumpet
• Jazz A (6):
• Emerson Blumenstein - Bari Sax
• Jack Elwell - Piano
• Miles Finigan - Trombone
• Mitchell Goff - Alto Sax
• Aiden Hatcher - Clarinet and Tenor Sax
• Elijah Norman - Trumpet

All-in-all it was an excellent experience and a great way to get started. We’ll have our other festival-event coming-up on Saturday May 10th when we travel to Central Washington University in Ellensburg to be a part of the John Moawad Jazz Festival. I’m sure our experience from Saturday will serve us well when we perform for the first time at this great festival. 

Now for this week we’ve got a couple of Musical Pit Orchestra rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and then a much shorter MB & CG rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon from 4:00-5:30PM. This full-group rehearsal will be the second street-marching practice of the Spring and our next-to-last one before the Pre-Daffodil performance at Sunset Stadium on Friday April 4th and the 4 Daffodil Parades on Saturday April 5th. I’ve asked all students who missed last Wednesday’s MB-CG rehearsal to make sure to be there with everyone else on Wednesday so we can get everyone back into marching and playing our 2 new pieces. We will have a SATURDAY OFF ON MARCH 29TH so everyone can rest-up and recharge before the BIG Daffodil Parades week. For those students performing in their first 4-parade Daffodil day, it’s a full experience as we march in 4 distinct events over the course of a long day (in case you were wondering, both our rehearsals and the parades go rain or shine and sometimes we get both wet and dry weather over the course of the day):

• The Tacoma Daffodil Parade in Downtown Tacoma starting at 10:15AM
• The Puyallup Daffodil Parade in Downtown Puyallup starting at 12:45PM
• Our Hometown Sumner Daffodil Parade down Main Street starting at 2:30PM
• The Orting Daffodil Parade down the Main Street of Orting starting at 5:00PM

There are well over 100 separate groups marching in one, two, three or, like us, all 4 of the parades, so students will need to bring sack lunches (we eat before the Puyallup Parade). They'll also get hot dogs and drinks from the Orting Eagles before the Orting Parade. It’s a long day but since we’re in near-constant motion it’ll go quickly and students can start their vacation as soon as we get back to school from Orting and we’ll have NO BAND ACTIVITIES OVER SPRING BREAK! We’ll have the Daffodil Parades Time-Line/Information and Permission hopefully by Wednesday when we get our number for the parades.

As I mentioned last week, we can always use parents who are school district approved as chaperones to help with our street rehearsals to serve as flaggers, etc. as we march around the streets of Sumner as well as come with us for the Daffodil Parades April 5th.

So, here’s our upcoming 2-week schedule:

Schedule for THIS WEEK: