[TPIN] Adults playing in student productions

[Vaxtrpts at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/1/2007 11:26:51 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
jervin at cfl.rr.com writes:

In the  schools around here, the Musical Productions like this are put on 
by the  High School Choral Departments and I assure everybody that they 
don't use  adult ringers for any of the Singing/Dancing parts.  But, the  
Orchestra is another story.  They tend to use all adults.  They  might 
have used a few students on occasion.  But, you have to realize  that the 
Chorus Department is run/managed pretty separately from the Band  
Department and the Orchestra Department and the Drama Department.   There 
is some cross pollination, but not much.  And they are all very  good 
programs, the Band's Wind Ensemble and the Orchestra were among the  
featured groups at the Midwest Clinic this year (whatever that is).   On 
the other hand, the other groups tend not to use the Chorus folks for  
their Gig's either.  -jfe-



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First of all, if you don't know about the Midwest Clinic, you need to  google 
it and find out about it.  It happens to be one to the most  prestigious 
educational conferences in the WORLD.  If your Wind Ensemble  and Orchestra were 
BOTH featured this past year, you should be extremely proud,  and I can tell 
you that your choral department is MISSING THE BOAT by not  including some of 
these wonderful young musicians in their pit orchestra.   The ONE activity that 
would happen all year that could and should involve the  choral, drama and 
music departments, would be the performance of a  Broadway show.
I have been watching this thread all the way through, especially since I  was 
one of the early people to post my feelings on it.
I still have the same opinion.  The pit orchestra should be a student  
orchestra, UNLESS there needs to be help from some adults in certain chairs,  like 
say - lead trumpet.  Schools that hire an all adult orchestra are  doing a 
disservice to the students and to the community by not including the  younger 
musicians as a part of the production.  Again, I am NOT opposed to  having adults 
in the pit, but not at the expense of completely taking away that  learning 
opportunity from the music students.
Now, I will tell you that at my high school (eons ago), it was an all  
student orchestra and it would have rivaled many some of your all adult pit  
orchestras for the schools today.  We were at a high school that had a  "college 
prep" music department.  Half of the musicians in our "dance  band" (that is what 
it was called back then, because we actually played for  school dances), went 
on to be full time pros.   Some of those  musicians were: Fred Radke, who 
leads the Harry James Orchestra now, Larry  Morrison who went on to play the jazz 
trumpet chair on Ted Heath's Band in  England, Bill Byrne who became a top 
studio woodwind player and was on the  original "Supersax" group, John Murray who 
ended up as principal bass player in  the Mexico City Symphony, Tom Duckworth 
who is still a first call drummer in San  Francisco, and others.  Why to I 
list these players?  Because there  are players like these in MANY of your 
school music programs today.  They  SHOULD be playing in the pit for any musicials.
(Of course, if you remember my messages from a recent thread on commitment,  
the students that I am talking about here are the ones who DO get it, and are  
practicing and do care about playing well. And contrary to Steve's earlier  
message, they are NOT all acting on stage in the production.)
Mike Vax



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