Thanksgiving and turkey have come and gone and Christmas time is here. I think this time gives us some perspective, about our families and what’s really important.
I want to say something about the Walmart employee first, I don’t know if you’ve heard about this story, but I feel deeply sorry for this person and their family. These Black Friday sales, especially at Walmart, are basically unorganized free-for-alls and shopping is not worth lives. I hope we try to think about our friends and family before material things, always.
I think music is one of the things that brings families and friends together. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is sitting in the car with my family listening to classical Christmas music before going to the Christmas Eve service at church. It’s always freezing, but we’re packed in the car with our jackets on.
The Austin Wind Symphony invites you to share the magic of this time through music. Invite your family and friends to our concert on December 5. Radio stations will be playing the same music non-stop, but you’ll get a chance to hear some pieces from your favorite Christmas movies.
I would like to start out by thanking everyone for a fabulous rehearsal. I think we are all ready to keep it up and put on a great concert on Friday.
I always love watching the video clips with the music in rehearsal because it adds so much to the experience and it’s a good sign that at the end of Amok Time during the trombone solo and the clip with Kirk and Spock, I felt the sadness in the music and the video. Our fans and Star Trek fans alike will hopefully feel the same way.
And even if you can’t make it to our concert, we’ve set up a way for anyone to watch live broadcasts of our rehearsals online. We’re now on Ustream.tv, a site that provides an experience like Twitter and You Tube (except it’s live!) combined.
The Twitter style aspect of this is that you can make a username to leave comments or “follow” us. The video shows when we’re on and off air and we will definitely be on air for our dress rehearsal on Thursday night, 7:30. So sit back and relax, you can watch us in your pajamas at home now.
On this blog I could pretend we worked together great 100% of the time but that would obviously be lying and journalists generally try to stay away from that. Tonight honestly was not a good or a fun rehearsal and I think everyone left a lot more down than they’d come in.
The good thing about the practice was that 89.5 FM’s Lilly Gibson came to record our songs and some interviews for the station’s Saturday Matinee program. It was great to receive the press but we also felt pressure from a recording to air on public radio.
The great thing about this ensemble is that we’re open and discussion is encouraged. Patrick doesn’t sugar coat anything for us and I feel like I could tell him about any problems I have, giving it right back. That’s why I can talk about our rehearsal in this post. Patrick can get very emotional when we’re performing under our potential and though I felt uncomfortable and stressed out while he confronted the ensemble, he made it clear that it’s because he cares about us so much and wants us to think of ourselves as much more than amateurs.
This is the reason why we can be honest and talk out our thoughts and feelings when we need to. It’s because music involves the internal heart and brain as well as the external limbs and lips. It’s because we come every week, make a commitment to the group and strive to do more than play the notes on the page.
The source of our stress is also the source of our joy–the performance– and I think we should remember that, especially coming into next week’s rehearsals.
I wore my Star Trek: The Symphonic Frontier shirt yesterday into a costume store and an employee there got so excited when she saw it and heard about our concert. I hope we think about all those people who have grown up watching Star Trek and light up with joy at the thought of this concert. I hope we think of these people not only when they’re right in front of us, but when we’re tired at the end of rehearsal and don’t feel like giving everything to the music.
Well folks,the countdown is on (10 Days!) until the Austin Wind Symphony blasts its way into the Final Frontier! On-board this time around as host and narrator is Captain Jim Kipping! The concert marks is his second time in the role of emcee as he last joined the ensemble in 2007 for their “Epics” concert.
As rehearsals become more and more hectic, Patrick Phillips, AWS conductor had this to say about Kipping… “He’s a big music nut himself, and has a unique ability to engage the audience… When he’s up there at the microphone the only thing I have to worry about is the music, the rest comes naturally.”
Shelly Eager, AWS Vice President, and Phillips recently paid a visited the KLBJ studio where Kipping works, and received a thorough tour of the Emmis Communications station learning in detail Jim’s daily routine.
While you may not know what he looks like… Chances are you’ll NEVER forget his amazing voice! He’s voiced everything from Pizza Hut commercials, and Geraldo at Large, to FOX news and thousands of other famous company’s including the spokesperson for NETFLIX.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to meet the man behind the voice on Friday October 24th, @ 8pm as the Austin Wind Symphony BOLDLY GOES into “Star Trek: The Symphonic Frontier”
AWS Conductor Patrick Phillips and VP Shelly Eager with Jim Kipping
If you haven’t listened to Patrick’s interview with Gerald Fried or other Behind the Score interviews, it’s well worth listening to, both for entertainment and to understand the ideas behind the creation of movie scores. Gerald Fried composed Amok Time, one of the pieces we’ll be playing in the upcoming concert.
The great thing about playing movie and television music is that most of the composers are still alive and we can learn the stories and the concepts behind the pieces. We may never know what the classical composers such as Tchaikovsky and Beethoven were thinking, but with music such as Amok Time, our conductor can actually talk to and connect with the person who created the music, and that’s pretty amazing to me.
And if you’ve never seen the iconic scene Gerald Fried wrote the piece for, you can get some context here.
If you’re a Heroes fan, yesterday was a national holiday, filled with the long-awaited first two episodes of season three. The addicting show, based on the style of graphic novels, has reached soaring popularity and follows the lives of the good, the bad and the ugly of super power world. Though season 2 was interrupted like most primetime by the writer strikes, the new installment, subtitled Heroes & Villians is now in full swing.
Though George Takei appeared only in video form in this episode, the Star Trek veteran made a good run on Heroes through the last of the first season into the second. And the nature of the show tells me we might be seeing more of him in season three. Takei plays Hiro’s mysterious and powerful father Kaito Nakamura, CEO of Yamagato industries in Japan. It seems Takei can’t get away from his Star Trek days as Mr. Sulu on the USS Enterprise; Hiro’s character is a huge Star Trek fan and Nakamura’s limo in his first appearance has a license plate reading NCC-1701, the model of the Enterprise.
[I love the pictures you can find on the Internet. From blog Bitten & Bound.]
Takei also made news recently for his personal life. After announcing this summer that he would marry his 21-year partner Brad Altman, they tied the knot on September 14 in Los Angeles, following the overturn of the gay marriage ban in California.
You can watch episodes featuring Takei and many others here.
Though you’ve probably noticed, the feed on the blog, the Austin Wind Symphony now has its very own twitter, so we can keep members and supporters of the group updated instantly on what we’re doing.
I’m a journalism student, so news, blogging and constant updates are inherent in my daily life, but many people aren’t quite used to all this new media yet. AWS has set these up, in addition to Myspace networking to reach out to our audience and members and make them feel more connected. Instead of receiving information from just a faceless web site, you can get a feel for our personalities and our human sides.
This is a huge theme in Star Trek as well. The show isn’t just a sci-fi show about different species, it’s about their “human” element as well, their emotions, experiences and relationships. That’s what makes the show so relevant and important to so many fans, whether they be costume-wearing trekkies or casual viewers of episodes on Spike.
[I just found this picture online. A little bit too much relationship going on?]
So make a comment, friend us on Myspace, follow us on Twitter and stay connected. That’s our goal and it’s why we’re not just a community band.
As conductor, I often have a bad habit of asking bizzare things of the orchestra, but this concert definately takes the cake… Because we are celebrating the music of “Star Trek” I found it nessesary to ask the entire ensemble to dress as though they served on board a starship, or a strange race of alien beings for concert night… While some have went out and actually purchased their costumes… Some made their own from scratch. One thing would be missing I knew, and I couldn’t have that, now could I?
So I asked Arvis Green, secretary of the ensemble to mold 50 Communicators from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and promised I would help her paint each one by hand… A week later she had not only molded them, but completely painted them as well!
Molded Combadge Props
They LOOK fantastic, and now the ensemble can be in touch with their fancy new communicator badges and the audience can rest assured knowing that the uniforms look and feel authentic.
On March 25th, 2008 The Austin Wind Symphony recorded the score for Director Lucas Martell’s animated film “Pigeon Impossible”. It was a blast, and I came across his posting of the event on his blog complete with photo’s and a sound clip of the AWS performing the title logo… CHECK IT OUT!
For those who don’t know, Lucas Martell is also a very talented Sax player who has been with the AWS since the very beginning… THANKS LUCAS! Congratulations!
Our upcoming concert, “Star Trek: the Symphonic Frontier” (October 24th, 2008) is an opportunity for everyone to understand and embrace diversity and inclusion in our community. Diversity covers race, gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, physical ability, and so much more. It is the differences that make each of us unique. The Austin Wind Symphony realizes that individuals have unique contributions and differences, but most of us are more alike than different.
Austin Wind Symphony members are rich in our diversity of thinking, perspectives, backgrounds, and culture. Our diversity (as well as talent) nurtures our ensemble’s innovative spirit. Being the music capital, Austin has provided us a rich resource pool of diverse, talented musicians. Our conductor has acknowledged our differences and is using them in a positive way. He recognizes the power of the mix; there is a strength that results from diversity, and we want you to experience it with us.
The concert on October 24 is our chance to recognize and acknowledge differences and similarities and show you how magic happens. If various species across the galaxies can get together to make great Star Trek movies and shows, we can get together to make not only a great concert, but also a great opportunity for Austin’s “species” to get together.
Don’t miss it. We look forward to seeing you in costume at 8:00pm. (3701 Slaughter Lane W., Austin Texas 78745)
Find us online: http://www.austinwindsymphony.org
.: Read more about Star Trek’s Diverse Universe Here: http://www.foundationnews.org/CME/article.cfm?ID=3054
On March 25th, 2008 The Austin Wind Symphony recorded the score for Director Lucas Martell’s animated film “Pigeon Impossible”. It was a blast, and I came across his posting of the event on his blog complete with photo’s and a sound clip of the AWS performing the title logo… CHECK IT OUT!
