Army Ground Forces Tuba Conf a success


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Posted by Sean Chisham on December 11, 2000 at 16:46:16:

I'ld like to personally thank the US Army Ground Forces Band folks for staging this conference. The quality of the ensembles and the individuals running it were top notch. The Georgia Brass Band, even though only 1.5 years old, was an amazing amateur ensemble. They were very dedicated to making music and it showed. It was a pleasure to listen to them.

The Ground Forces Band was also of high quality. I had never had a chance to hear a major command band and did not know what to expect. I was very pleasantly surprised.

I would have to say that the most impressive point of the conference though was standing in front of the band between Pat Sheridan and Dave Zerkel for the encore pieces "Them Basses" and "Melody Shop". The first tune isn't really that difficult to sight read, but "Melody Shop" has a few tricky licks. Pat's bell was pointed away from me, but I did get a good dose of Dave reading it down at speed on an F tuba of all things. The man can read like a mother. I now have a model to base all my future sight reading on. WOW!!

Special thanks to SSG Alan Herold and SGT Chris Hite. These two men were the main two who guided us around during the conference and incoorporated practice schedules into the day's events. All of the members of the band who pitched in extra time and lack of sleep are to be commended. Any conference is difficult to put on, but especially when there was no precedent. This was their very first and hopefully will become an annual event.

Also thanks are deserving of their commander, Major French, who allowed them the time and resources needed to do this. Having command level support for non mission specific extra events is a great thing.

For those of you who were close enough to attend and skipped it. You really did miss out on some great playing and lectures. The audiences were smaller than expected, but that is surely to change now that the FORCOM band has proven that they can put on a high quality production on such a large scale.

If you are interested in musical development, or just want to catch some great music, then plan early next year and include this conference in your schedule. The stronger the attendance, the higher likelyhood of even more events coming to the southeast region.

sean



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