Klarinet Archive - Posting 000854.txt from 1999/02

From: Dodgshun family <dodgshun@-----.nz>
Subj: Re: [kl] A clarinet
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 08:07:01 -0500

At 09:52 PM 20/02/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Anna,
>What precisely do you mean by players committee? We have a band council which
>I think is analogous. The band elects some of its members as representatives
>to voice concerns to the director and band boosters, our source of funding as
>the school district gives us peanut shells. However, as our band program is
>poor (monetarily) we also do a lot of fund raising. In addition, we have also
>put together various thank you treats for our overworked band parents.

Our committee is elected by the orchestra, and usually has 7 or 8 members,
and there is usually at least one member from the string section, the
woodwind section, the brass section and the percussion section. They take
some of the weight off the conductor, orchestra manager and tour/concert
manager as well as voicing concerns. They also organize the social side of
the orchestra - post-concert parties, end-of-tour functions etc etc. We
don't have to fundraise an awful lot, thanks to corporate sponsorship, but
the committee does help out when we need to fundraise.

>P.S. What is music funding like in your public schools? It is abysmal here.

We have what's called an itinerant scheme, where schools are allocated a
certain number of teaching hours free of charge to the students - the
schools choose what instruments get what hours. This goes right through all
years at all the public schools. We don't have the things like marching
band programs. Here in Christchurch we do have a Primary Schools' Music
Festival which runs for six nights; they have two representative choirs, an
orchestra, recorder group and concert band which perform every night, plus
each night they have school choirs (different ones each night) singing the
massed items - songbooks get sent around the schools six months earlier.
This is all funded - it costs you nothing, and means that 9-12 year olds get
a chance to perform in a top-class venue, play in a full symphony orchestra
(which reaches an amazing standard) and get some experience in large-choir
singing. I loved the time I had in the Festival.

Anna

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