Hello Kealing Families!
It is my great pleasure to inform you that the Kealing Symphony Orchestra has been named the TMEA Middle School Honor Orchestra in the String Orchestra category!!! Per the Texas Music Educators Association website “The Honor Orchestra selection process seeks to recognize and honor quality musicianship in the performance of advanced literature at the highest level. Showcasing the quality teaching these exemplars represent promotes the growth and development of orchestra programs throughout Texas…The purpose of Honor Band/Honor Orchestra was two-fold. Many educators believed that through the process of hearing and observing the results of quality teaching, directors could develop their own instructional skills to a higher level. In addition, selection of an honor orchestra recognized communities and school systems that successfully supported music in education through their instrumental music programs.” The basic process for honor orchestra is that orchestras who believe they are performing advance music at a high level enter a recording to TMEA where it is judged against all the others entered in their category. A small number of finalists are chosen and these top groups are then judged at the Texas Orchestra Directors Association conference in July. A panel of five judges ranks the finalist orchestras and declares a winner. Kealing has been a finalist many years ranking in the top ten to top five orchestras in the state, but this year was selected as the NUMBER ONE MIDDLE SCHOOL STRING ORCHESTRA IN THE STATE. This is one of the highest honors our orchestra could hope to achieve and we are so proud of our students for working so hard and playing with real musicianship. Mr. Jarrott and I were both at the judging session and heard all the other fine orchestras in the finals, and were so impressed with the other 6 finalist orchestras and feel honored to be counted among them. With this honor comes an invitation to play at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention in February in San Antonio, which is the nation’s largest convention of music educators. The orchestra will be asked to play a concert during the convention along with the other honor orchestras, bands, and choirs. We look forward to working toward this performance throughout the year and sharing it with the families and friends of the orchestra along with our colleagues from around the state. Again, we cannot express how proud we are of the students and also want to extend the congratulations from our Fine Arts Director, Mr. Greg Goodman, and our wonderful principal, Ms. Coburn. This could not have happened without the hard work of many years of students, without the support of the parents and families of our young musicians, without the encouragement from Kealing staff, administrators, and teachers, or without the amazing continual striving of Mr. Jarrott in his quest to bring out the very best from our students and to help them learn the wonderful results of hard work, high standards, and true musicianship. GO ORCHESTRA!!
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Hello Orchestra Members! I hope you are enjoying your summer break and have gotten some rest a relaxation so far! I know I have been enjoying some time in the sun and also A LOT of sleep, but I have also been doing a lot of PRACTICING! And I wanted to make sure you remember to do some practicing of your own. Not sure what to practice? Remember those little things called All Region Excerpts? Oh yeah! They small pieces your are supposed to be practicing right now in preparation for the Region Auditions coming up on October 15th, 2016. Now I know that date seems like a million years away, but at the start of the school year you will be getting two new excerpts you must also prepare, so get this one learned and out of the way while you have plenty of time to practice! Oh no, you can't find the music of the excerpt that we passed out at the end of the year? Dog ate it? Dropped it in the pool while you were practicing outside? Disappeared into the black hole of the end-of-the-year backpack? No worries! I have you covered. The documents attached below are the excerpts for each instrument. You only need to look at the one for your instrument. Practice up, use a metronome, and get some work done! Does it seem intimating to learn a new piece without me or Mr. J helping you out? Well you are in luck! The wonderful people at Orchestra Tutor.com are here to help! For a very reasonable price (much less than a private instructor) you can get access to videos on these specific excerpts, with tips and lessons and play-throughs at different speeds to help you master this music taught by local and trusted teachers. There are also video and lessons for Suzuki music and orchestra music. Using this tool, so many students have found success on their Region Excerpts and orchestra music. Westridge Middle School students all used this tool last year and a record number of their students passed the audition and made it into the Region Orchestra. Do consider this amazing tool to help with your summer practice!!! CLICK HERE TO JOIN On another note pertaining to All Region Auditions, we want to announce that Region Auditions will be hosted by us at Kealing this year! Since there was redistricting of the TMEA regions, only AISD schools will be included in our region for orchestra. Since many of our own students audition for All Region Orchestra and since our school is centrally located, we volunteered to host this event. This means we will want as many Kealing Students as possible to audition (this is an expectation of those in the Symphony and strongly recommended for those in the Philharmonic and Concert Orchestras) and if a student is a beginner or feels the music is beyond what they can prepare, then we definitely will need helpers for the event. We will also need parent help with check-in and room monitoring. In the fall, you will be seeing more specific information about how to sign up to help.
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