Re: extravagant student ensemble trips


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Posted by Doc on June 01, 2003 at 22:47:36:

In Reply to: extravagant student ensemble trips posted by js on June 01, 2003 at 13:09:25:

I'm sure that trips, for the right reasons, and funded in an appropriate manner, are great experiences. During my years attending University of Houston, I was asked to fill in for the Houston Youth Symphony on a trip to New Orleans. The high schooler tubist could not go. The director taught cello at UH, and I knew him as well as a tubist can know a cellist. He assured me that I did not have to pay a dime for the trip, as it was an emergency. I don't know if they raised funds for the trip, had donations, etc. All I know is that I got to fly to New Orleans and had all I had to do was pay for meals. I could not have afforded a trip like that, much less one to Europe, had I been the regular tubist. It was not as musically satisfying as what I was doing at the time - UH Wind Ensemble, UH Symphony, Galveston Symphony, and Houston Civic Symphony, contract work, polka music, etc. I wonder how musically satisfying it was for the regulars. The bass trombonist said the trip was okay, and playing was okay, but he really thought it was cool that I could drink beer with everybody's parents(typical bass trombonist, I guess). Hey, I had a free trip, so I went, even though I'd been there numerous times before. I did enjoy the playing, but I enjoyed everything else a lot more. Eating, Preservation Hall Band, various French Quarter bands, and especially drinking beer in the hotel bar with the chaperones(I was the only orchestra member out of high school, and I was old enough to drink). It was really like a vacation for me, one which I'm sure could have been made a lot cheaper than what the orchestra spent.
Doc (who doesn't regret it, but glad he didn't have to pay for it)


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