Chicago-The Midwest Clinic (part 2)

One of my favorite things about The Midwest Clinic, beside the great Paige's Music party in the hotel, was my discovery of The Hindsley Transcriptions. While walking through the chaos of the many exhibitors and trying to converse with people while drums are playing, cymbals clashing and trumpeters trying to see who can be most obnoxious, I came across a wonderfully orange booth. Literally, it was all orange...everything, even the lovely gentleman who helped me had a nice bright orange sweatshirt on. None-the-less, what caught my attention was the rack of scores, each cardboard score with an orange cover. Those scores looked just like the wonderful transcription I found of The Nutcracker Suite just a few months ago. I loved that transcription! I quickly glanced over the scores searching for The Nutcracker Suite just to make sure I had the right place, I didn't want to celebrate to quickly and since I couldn't remember the name of the publisher. There it was, all in it's orange glory, standing next to dozens of other orange scores.

For those of you who don't know me, I am not a happy customer when it comes to finding reputable transcriptions of great orchestral works for band. There are many good arrangements of a snipit of this with a snipit of that...but very rarely a great arrangement or transcription that really does the great work justice...until now. I had hit the jack pot! The lovely gentleman in the orange sweatshirt was Bob Hindsley, son of the late Dr. Mark Hindsley and standing behind him were dozens of incredible transcriptions of orchestral works for band. Oh, my heart was content. I found Strauss' Don Juan, Beethoven's Leonore No. 3, Tchaokovsky's Violin Concerto, Bruckner's Violin Concerto, Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italiano and so much more!

After a bit dreaming about what our library could have and of the repretoire my students could be introduced to, I finally did purchase a few great additions to our library. My librarians will have some work to do when they get back to campus from their Christmas break. I didn't make the purchase just yet, however headed off quickly to find room W 190 to see Michael McIntosh's premiere of his latest piece "Bloom". Spring High School (TX) performed superbly and put on a terrific concert at Midwest performing Michael's new work and other newly commissioned pieces, including a work with percussionist She-e Wu. All together, a fantastic performance-bravo!

Before heading back to Indianapolis and continuing a week of crazy travels, I found a booth that was willing to try to replicate my baton. It is a beautifully balanced and crafted wood baton, not solid wood, but it is seemless from the bulb to the shaft, crafted by Charles Olson. Apparently he sold his business and I was fortunate to find the people who make his designs. I'm excited to see how close they can make it to the original. I love my original but have had it for years and it's starting to look like it.

Next posting I'll have to update you about the new music building...we're so close to being done!

Chicago-The Midwest Clinic

So, day two of The Midwest Clinic out in lovely Chicago, Illinois. Since I've found a quick moment (waiting in The Pavillion at the Hilton for my lunch to arrive) I find myself actually missing writing on my blog. I've, in all honest, never really looked forward to it all all, it was all a Marian University Marketing Communications department indea. I didn't even know what a blog was...tells you how behind the times I must be. Anyways, I wanted to get back in the habit of updating my blog, and not do it every two months.

The Midwest Clinic is a nice event, the wonderful people at Yamaha and Paige's Music have very generous to provide me with registration and a hotel for the conference. The whole trip started out leaving quite early from my home in Fishers to drive up to Chicago Heights, IL to make a visit to Marian Catholic High School. As most of you already know, Greg Bimm (band director) has a phenomenal program with very hard working students. I headed up to Greg's program to do a few auditions. I believe I did 6 or 7, not to bad for a days work. The best part of that trip was the actual audition, each student did a great job, some with INCREDIBLE potential to be very solid professional musicians-but get this-almost all of the students that auditioned for me all want to major in something outside of music, many of them seeking careers in medicine. How awesome is that! Greg, you're the man.

Ok, back to Midwest, after leaving MCHS, now with 2 of my current students who are former MCHS students (they met me for breakfast at Egg and I-great food for an even better price) in my car, we headed to find my hotel at the Hilton on the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago. My two students were so great to help me carry my luggage and tons of music to my room. So, after checking into my room I headed out to the McCormick Place (can't remember if it's north or south, but it's the new one) and sat on a nice charter bus for 15 minutes to get there from the hotel. Arrived at the beautiful convention center (although I think Indianapolis could do it soooo much better!) and walked around for about 45 minutes. Lots of vendors trying to speak to potential customers over the constant crescendo of screaming trumpets and cymbal crashes-quite the site...a little irritating after awhile, but then you can just walk to another side of the room. I feel a bit bad for the vendors who have to sit through that for entire days...yikes.

So, headed by to my hotel room to meet with my grandfather, who lives only about 30 minutes from downtown Chicago, for dinner. That was nice-we talked for a long time and I was able to see a deeper and more intimate side of a man I greatly admire. Afterwards I found myself quite exhaused from the day and finally fell asleep with the tv on. No worries, I definitely awoke at 2am to a very warm and stuffy room so I could lower the temperature and turn off the television. Unfortunately, I was now awake. I think I finally fell asleep about an hour later.

I'll write about day 2 a little later, my panini and fries are getting cold.


A presto!