Ensembles Starting Up Again

I'm really excited that things are starting up again! All my musical activities are begining. I have already have had one rehersal of Concert Orchestra at Midwest Young Artists, Honors Wind Symphony at Midwest Young Artists, MYA intensive chamber, and Maxwell Street Junior Klezmer Band.

I made Concert Orchestra at MYA this year. It is the second highest level orchestra at Midwest Young Artists. We are playing the first and second movements of Dvorak's 'Eighth Symphony' for a concert on Halloween. The first movement is played on A clarinet, which is exciting because I have a chance to use my A clarinet which I don't get to use normally. I hope we do well in the concert.

 Another ensemble I made in MYA this year is Honors Wind Symphony. It is the only Wind Symphony at MYA. We are playing Schuman's 'When Jesus Wept', Barber's 'Intermezzo', Reed's 'La Fiesta Mexicana', and Schuman's 'Chester' (Not to be confused with Schumann). The harder pieces are 'Chester' and 'La Fiesta Mexicana' . They are harder because they are faster, have more difficult fingerings, and go higher than the other two pieces.  The "La Fiesta" goes to a high A.  We have a two performances the week before the Halloween concert and one at the Halloween concert.

 Because I am in Concert Orchestra this year, I have a chamber music group at MYA. I am in the intensive chamber group in which we have more rehearsals and more performances than the other chamber groups. We are playing a wind quintet by Ferene. The second movement of the piece is played on A clarinet. It is cool that I get two pieces on A clarinet at the same time. We are going to get more music next week. I don't know when the first chamber performance will be.
The last ensemble that I am in this year is Maxwell Street Junior Klezmer Street Band which is a klezmer group that is run by the Maxwell Street Band. Klezmer is a really distinct style of playing.  In klezmer you must have a looser embouchure. Even though the format is so different from classical music, I still really like it.  It is very unlike all of my Honors Wind Symphony and Concert Orchestra music. I am so happy that my music is much more difficult this year than last year. I can't wait until my klezmer concert and my Halloween concert. I have so much new music to learn that I need to practice a lot more than I already practice to prepare everything.