I discovered a record (that's a round, black, flat thing made of vinyl for you young folks) at the antique store in Shreve - the Triway High School Spring Pop Concert 1965! I couldn't believe my luck, and the record was in very good condition. I burned a CD of the record and used that to make the following mp3 and wma files. The record includes four songs from the high school band and three songs from the junior high band (I take that to mean the 7th and 8th grades were combined to make one junior high band -- they have been separate bands for quite some time now). This was the second full year for the Triway High School Band, and its director was Don Carpenter. He left Triway in 1968 to go to *Orrville*.
Selections From "Mary Poppins" I Left My Heart In San Francisco Mancini Medley Thundercrest March
This was the last year for the THS Band to compete in Class C under Mr. Brooks. We received straight I's at district contest! But at the state level, we got straight II's on the floor and a I in sight reading for a grand total of II. We were disappointed, of course. However, this was the year of the big New York City (band only) trip with the Music Maestro Please organization! We saw "Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway and competed in the music contest where we received a silver rating.
In honor of our trip and "Phantom", we performed a highlights piece at the All-Triway band concert. This is the "Music of the Night" finale of the song. Horn soloist is Andy Bowman. This is the song that first taught me how to play musically; only while practicing this piece did I start to understand how to make music out of notes on a page, so this one is very special to me in many different ways. One of the pieces we played for District Contest at the All-Triway Concert. This part is mainly woodwinds. Flute soloist is Beth Kelly. Performed at the Spring Concert in the TJHS gym, soloist is senior trumpeter Richard Brooks: Richard was the recipient of the John Philip Sousa Band Award in 1992. Please forgive the sound quality: I don't have this concert on VHS, only on a mini-tape recorder from my seat in the band.
This year had its ups and downs. After receiving an excellent rating at state contest the year before, Mr Brooks decided to move us up to Class B. The transition was a little rough, and we got a II at District Contest. Better luck was to come next year.
Please forgive the quality of this recording. It's the best I have of the better times we played it! The Triway Brass Quintet performed this song at solo & ensemble and at the All-Triway Band Concert. It is a Class A piece, and we received a superior rating! Members of the quintet were:Paula Moore (soph)-1st trumpet
Geoff Litteral (frosh)-2nd trumpet
Andy Bowman (senior)-horn
Matt Mackey (junior)-trombone
Tony Colich (junior)-tuba
We had a blast together, and we practiced and practiced and practiced, and it was well worth it with a superior rating. I highly recommend this piece for any ambitious brass ensemble looking for a class A to take to contest.
A cute piece for xylophones, performed at the Spring Concert. The trio consisted of Tim Graff, Brian Musselman, and Bill Landers. A trombone feature from the Spring Concert. Trombones were: Matt Mackey, Scott Schwarzwalder, Chris Finney, Jeremy Yoh, Matt Lee, and Rachel Weiser. Performed at the Spring Concert in the TJHS gym, soloist is senior clarinet player Ted Lilley: Ted was the recipient of the John Philip Sousa Band Award in 1993. Ted was disappointed when Mr. Brooks presented him with this piece. I think he was expecting something more difficult or splashy. However, he stuck with it, did a nice job, and got a lovely standing ovation at the spring concert!
Much improved from the last year, this band received a superior at District Contest. Due to some intonation problems, and maybe a few others the judges had, we got a II at State Contest. We were pretty good kids but sometimes lacking in "rehearsal discipline". (Warming up before the All-Triway Band Concert in the band room comes to mind...) However, we played a lot of good music this year, and I believe there were a few pieces that especially helped us grow as musicians and helped us to have a wonderful band the next year. Here's to all the '94 seniors (21 of them) who stayed with us through 4 years of band!
One of our pieces for district contest: we had some nice moments in this one. There are actually 5 horn players playing this song, but that's okay. We had an excellent horn section this year! Actually, our horns were usually good while I was in high school. This is the entire song. We had a very nice trombone section this year as well. It helped that 3 of them were seniors and that we gained another "senior" this year, a German exchange student! This was such a great piece. Everyone who was in band that year says "oh I remember that one!" It was tough (our required piece for state contest), but I think we learned a lot from it. Although we played it better than I have heard some others play it, you can still understand the intonation issues, and also some mis-counting toward the end of the song with our singing entrances. Please forgive them for now, and enjoy the music and our singing anyway!
The 1994-95 school year was by far the best year in recent history for the Triway High School Symphonic Band. Of course there are always things that could have been played better, but we were a small (63 concert members), non-audition high school band made up of all four grade levels. Bigger is not always better! I am very proud of the great job we did and thank Mr Brooks for getting us there. It was Mr Brooks' last year as the THS band director. He was retiring after 27 years at Triway with a few more in Fredricktown and elsewhere. My class was the THS Class of '95, and I must say, I think we did a very good job of being leaders and role models for the rest of the band. After wondering if we'd ever get another plaque on the wall, it came in May of 1995: a superior rating in Class B! We also received a Gold rating for an adjudicated event in Chicago through the Music Maestro Please organization.
Rehearsal
These rehearsal recordings are from my seat in the band, courtesy of my trusty mini tape recorder!
One of the best things we did to warm-up during practice was to play from Bach chorales out of the "Sixteen Chorales by JS Bach" compilation. They helped us learn how to blend, how to "listen across the band", how to bring out moving parts, and that the inner parts are more important to the whole of the piece than the melody. This is one of those chorales, played during our warm-up in Chicago on the day of our contest.There are always a few tunes to play before the seniors enter, and in 1995 "Flourish For Wind Band" was chosen. We played it the year before for a concert, so it wasn't completely new. This song was Geoff's debut as first chair in the trumpet section, and it was also his first solo as such! I decided it would be fun to play the split 1st trumpet part just to have some nice harmony. This recording does not include the ending.
Pomp and Circumstance is whole for the first time through to the repeat. Then, I repeated the first time we played and spliced on the second ending to end the song. That is how we would play it for the processional, unless we needed to go back to b, c, d, etc., if the seniors weren't in their seats yet. Usually, Mr. Brooks would convey what we went back to by using sign language for the letter. The Grand March has a stop in the middle, since this was rehearsal, then I pick it back up after a few measures after he gives some directions. My recorder was on the setting to stop when it didn't hear any sound. When it picked back up, there are some weird things going on with the tape, so the pitch gets messed up just a little in a few places - I was not doing that with my trumpet!
Akron U Concert
Our concert season actually began during the last week of marching band. We had the Akron U performance coming up on December 3, and we needed to get cracking! I think getting started on the right foot earlier than usual really helped us out. Our performance was a little rough because it was early in the season, but taking into consideration we put together a four-song concert in a month, we did extremely well! These excerpts mostly feature the woodwinds.
Spring Pops Concert
To top this fantastic year off, we played 7 songs at our Spring Pops Concert. The first song was our required piece from state contest, and the other 6 were new - never performed by us before! Before we left the band room to go into the gym that night, Mr. Brooks handed out our BLUE medals we received for our superior rating at state contest, which we then proudly pinned to our shirts to wear for the rest of the evening.
This was our required piece for state contest. We always enjoy playing Swearingen, don't we? The reason I added this clip is because we were playing this part one day during rehearsal, and just the trumpets were playing. When we got to the end of our 3-part trumpet bit, Mr Brooks just looked at us and got a huge smile on his face. Apparently, he really liked what he heard from us. We truly were a great section that year, from 1st chair to last. Way to go trumpets! This was a special piece because Mr Brooks dedicated this song to his parents (they were sitting in the front row at the concert). This song always reminds me of the Cadets D&B Corps show "In the Spring When Kings Go Off to War" because they played this towards the end of the show - very sweet brass! Such a good song I had to have 2 excerpts: #1 is woodwinds, #2 is brass! Mr. Brooks loves conducting this stuff! I loved playing this stuff! (We did have some freshmen snare players who insisted on not watching the tempo closely, boo) The awesome arrangement by Carmen Dragon! It's a difficult piece for high school, but worth it if the band plays it well. Listen to those clarinets - what a great sound. I wish the horn parts could be heard better. I could hear them from my seat, and they were great. (I was also sitting directly behind them) Soloist is senior trumpeter Paula Moore: I was the recipient of the John Philip Sousa Band Award in 1995. The first link is just the cadenza at the beginning of the piece. The second link is the rest of the song.
This year the band and choir went to New York City in the spring. One of the things many they did on the trip was make a recording of songs. Since the band and choir don't participate in the OMEA large group contest anymore on "trip years", they choose some songs for their repetoire that they usually wouldn't have time to do. The band's theme was Amercian music. The last selection is a very nice piece for SATB choir with instrumental accompaniment - I thought it would be nice to include. Other than some very bright vowels by the guys, it showcases some of the choral talent that Stan Willis has had through the years.
This was a trip year, so the band and choir once again went to New York City in the spring. They again made a recording of some songs. This year the band played selections from Holst's "The Planets". I remember when Mr. Brooks first distributed this piece to us when I was a freshman. We read through it a few times, but then he decided we would do something different and I never thought about it again until I heard the band play this at the All-Triway Concert.
The Spring Concert this year was dedicated to veterans of our Armed Services and was held at Fisher Auditorium at the OARDC. Among the many songs was an Armed Services medley where veterans were invited to stand when their Service Song was played. The following are excepts from other songs of that evening.
This was a trip year, so the band and choir once again went to New York City in the spring. They again made a recording of some songs, some of which they played at the All-Triway Band Concert. They also did not participate in the OMEA large group contest since it was a "trip year". The theme for the concert season was to play songs from many different nations. This included pieces from Japan, France, Russia, England, and to top it off, the "United Nations March"!
Music is from all 3 pieces the band played at the All-Triway Concert. They would have played these at district contest, too, but the event was canceled due to our March "blizzard". Novena, written by Jim Swearingen in 1980, is an absolutely beautiful piece. Three Scottish Vistas was the band's required number - they returned to Class C this year.
These are two of the five pieces the band played for the Spring Concert. The band was already familiar with the musical "Wicked" because they saw it on Broadway when they visited NYC the year before.
The following excerpts are from two of the pieces the band played at the All-Triway Band Concert. Exaltation, by our favorite Ohio composer, has a particularly beautiful theme in the middle, but there are some serious pitch and intonation issues that likely contributed to the rating of II in Class C at district contest.