Mr. Marvosh gave us great information on how our music program is forming. He also shared with us his needs and hopes for the upcoming year. I have asked him to make a list, so all the parents can join in helping with fulfill those needs. Please direct your responses directly to him (his email is below), and he will keep us updated on the progress. Thank you!
Music at NCA
Instrument Acquisition--Both for orchestra instruments for secondary students and for classroom instruments for elementary classes. I had some good suggestions from people on Thursday, but I am always looking for places to acquire instruments. We would love donations of instruments for the orchestras as well as for the classrooms. Instruments needed are string instruments, wind instruments, orchestral percussion (timpani, glockenspiel, drums, bells, triangles, cymbals, etc.), and classroom percussion (what is known as Orff instruments--small xylophones and glockenspiels). I am interested in using many kinds of instruments in the elementary classroom, but mostly percussion instruments. We could use buckets, boomwhackers (new sets of which cost about $25), or anything else that students can make different, but not too loud, noises on.
Performance assistance--As of this moment, I am thinking that our first performance will be for Christmas. I do not want to put too much pressure on myself and my students at the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a challenging school year. I would much appreciate any help I can get at performances, including chaperoning, ushering, program design, printing, and distribution, venue acquisition (I already had a few parents give me leads in this area), and logistical geniusing. During performances I have enough attention to warm up my groups, introduce pieces, and conduct. I have to delegate the rest. It would be ever so helpful to have a volunteer Manager who I could work closely with as performances approach, who could oversee all of the jobs I mentioned earlier. I know this is asking for a lot, but these volunteers would mean so much to me and the music department at NCA.
Music Acquisition--I will be borrowing a great deal of music this year. It would behoove the academy, however, to start building a music library for performing groups. Choral music costs approximately $1.75 per copy, and since choir sizes may be as large as 50 students, that is a significant amount of money. Orchestra music costs upwards of $50.00 for a complete set. Extra scores of orchestra music for judged performances can cost $7.00 apiece, so festival music may well cost an extra $21.00. Again, I will be borrowing most, if not all, of the music for this year, so this is a problem to think about for the future.
Classroom assistance--Again, I had a lot of great suggestions from parents about classroom assistance on Thursday. Looking for local people who are retired and willing to help in music classrooms is a great idea. Can we run an ad about that in the paper? I am most expressly in need of piano accompanists for choir in the mornings, and experienced instrumentalists for the orchestras. Any parents or friends of the academy with this knowledge and experience, or just a desire to help in the classroom would be most welcome. It will be easy for Mrs. Cook and I to get overwhelmed this year with the sheer number of students we will be responsible for, so I dearly hope that some wonderful individuals will be willing to offer their assistance however they are able.
Uniforms--I have very few ideas about the best way to go about acquiring uniforms for our choirs and orchstras. I think in would be very appropriate for our elementary school students to wear their school uniforms to performances, but for the older students we need to start exploring possibilities of dresses, tuxedos, or choir robes. I have little experience in the area of fashion, so if anyone has any knowledge about an easy and affordable way to assemble an aestethically pleasing performance uniform, please let me know.
Risers for my room--I had a great discussion with Irene on Thursday who directed me to her brother-in-law who she thought would be able to design and construct risers for my room. Thank you Irene! If anyone is willing to help with riser construction, please let me know.
Thank you all so much for your attention, advice, and participation in NCA and NCA's music program. I hope that together we can build a department that other schools will aspire to emulate. Please contact me about these or any other ideas at mmarvosh@ncacharter.org, or at 936-0659.
Thank you,
Michael Marvosh
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