Welcome back!

Hello everyone!

I hope all of you had a terrific summer and are ready to return to an exciting year for the Silver Band!  Tonight at the orientation, I had the opportunity to visit with returning members, new members and even a few that have taken a few years off and are coming back.  I'm looking forward to seeing all of you on September 8.

Here's a brief outline of what you can expect this fall.  On Saturday, September 26 we are going to travel to Raymond High School to have a drumming workshop with Ryan Heseltine.  This event is simply for fun and gives us an opportunity to spend some time together outside of rehearsal.  I will give you more details soon.

Our first performance will be on Saturday, October 17.  We will be teaming up with the St. Ambrose Church Hall Building Committee (in Coaldale) to put on an Oktoberfest celebration.  I have been to their Oktoberfest parties before and they are so much fun.  This will take place at St. Joseph School (where I teach) and there will be a dinner, a concert (put on by us) and then a dance with a polka band.  This is a fundraising event in which we will help the St. Ambrose Parish in their efforts to raise money to build a church hall.

There are several reasons why we decided to do this event.  First, we wanted to try an event that was completely new and different for us.  Secondly, we wanted to reach out to a fellow non-profit group to help with them what they need.  Finally, we now that this will help the Silver Band reach an audience that may not have previously known about us.

The annual Mayor's Christmas concert will be held on December 5 and the guest group will be a children's choir from Mike Mountain Horse Elementary School, directed by Megan Peeke-Voute.  For those of you who don't know her, Megan is a clarinetist with the Gold Band and her husband is Nick Sullivan.

Sam has a lot of terrific plans for you in 2016.  There will be a spring concert in March, the Kiwanis Festival, a tentative trip to Red Deer to the provincial festival of the bands (May) and then the annual pops concert with the Gold Band in June.

I would like to remind everyone that it is very important that fees be paid as soon as possible.  Registration and payment can be done online at lcbs.ca.  

And finally (for now), I would like to encourage all of you to access this blog.  Each week, I will post what we will be working on at the next rehearsal.  This is so that you can manage your practice time as effectively as possible.  I will also share important information regarding upcoming events as well as recordings, links and resources regarding the pieces that we are playing.

I will see you all on Tuesday and I can't wait to make music with all of you!

Karen