Hiram Community Band
Yesterday was the performance of the Hiram Community Band, an ensemble that, according to founder/director Tina Dreisbach, "appears once a year like Brigadoon." I joined because it was a short time commitment (3 rehearsals and concert), and an opportunity to meet local musicians, play a repertoire I don't normally play, and exercise my face for Madison. (Yes, spending that much time practicing sackbut would have been more effective, but I wasn't going to do that). For a no-audition group (beggars can't be choosers) there's remarkably little dead wood, and by the end, we had a reasonably balanced ensemble: 2 trumpets (the weak section), 2 horns (1 Eb!), 4 trombones (1 valve!), euphonium (me), tuba, 3 flutes, 6 clarinets, alto-tenor-bari saxes, and 4 hitters of things (I think only one was a real percussionist.) The group plays what Case-trained HIP performer Tina calls "historical arrangements", easier band music from the '40s and '50s. This is great for the (nonexistent) budget, but when a part is gone, so is the arrangement.
The concert is usually held outside, but the weather was iffy and the police had forgotten to block off the campus street where the group usually plays. So we set up chairs in the big ballroom-type room where we usually rehearse and ended up SRO with an audience in the 100-200 range, including the mayor and the man who is directing the upcoming performance of The Music Man.
I had volunteered to conduct 2 numbers:The Tennessee Waltz and The Thunderer. The 2nd horn, a woman apparently known only as "the Mother of the Twins", had only been at the first rehearsal (probably because of The Twins), and 15 minutes before, I found out there was no F horn part available for The Thunderer, and she was going to lay out because she didn't feel confident transposing. "That's not acceptable," I said, found in one of the supernumary horn folders a hand-copied part to something else, and proceeded to write out a transposed part in pencil. I finished 2 minutes before the end of intermission, she played and it was fine...and I achieved heroic status with her.
All went well...I declined to wear the silly military band hat for The Tennessee Waltz, saying "Nobody can fill your hat, Tina", but put it on for the Sousa because, well, it was Sousa. The crowd began clapping along after the breakup strain, so when it came back around, I turned around and conducted them.
Afterwards I had a lovely conversation with Tina's parents (Mr. Spencer retired from the trombone section this year at the age of 88.)
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