Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2021-04-29 21:44
Hi Beth,
Perrysburg, OH here!
Great idea to share our experiences particularly about musical challenges that we have endured over the past year. But first, congratulations on starting your vaccines. This plus masking and social distances are paramount in overcoming this pandemic. Both Lynne and I are in the most senior bracket so we got our start in late January and finished by early March. However, we are not taking any real risks which would be silly.
Before I talk about music I wish to congratulate your husband on his on-line teaching. I'm a retired university professor and have been doing distance education (that's what it was called then) work with my students since about 1996. The key here though is that having a time and place independent segment is easier with university students particularly those in graduate school. I'm glad that my 19 years of elementary and secondary teaching are over as that age of student can be a real challenge in so many ways.
Musically, I did a lot of pit work and played with two really fine wind ensembles. During the first several months of the pandemic, to keep my chops I practiced all my doubles about every day. Also, I began to realize that large group performances might be slow in coming back. With that thought in mind, I shared it with several of my woodwind pals. The result was that I am now a member of two brand-new clarinet quartets the Lake Erie Winds and the Ann Arbor Clarinet Quartet. We have begun to practice together and are already planning for some local recitals for the summer and fall. Our venues will be local senior housing facilities, libraries, and a church or two. One of our members owns a winery and another is a minister so we have some performance opportunities.
So far, we have amassed a pretty respectable repertoire composed of many free charts, a few small purchases, and some re-arrangements of free brass and string quartet charts. Loading them into Finale and then editing as needed has worked well (it has been a fun experience to learn more about my 2012 Finale software).
This has actually been a lot of fun! But I believe that there will be some very real opportunities for small ensemble performance in the near term.
Cheers,
HRL
Post Edited (2021-04-30 03:51)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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