Countdown until Optimist!

Reminders:
-Please return all Optimist Festival Permission forms

Congratulations!
-Congratulations to all Jazz Band students on a good performance at February Blues

Quickly Approaching!
Optimist Festival Performance Times (Masssey, McVeety, RCS, Grant Road, Perry)
Grant Road and Perry Grade 6 Band  - Tues. March 15 - 9:00a.m.
Massey, McVeety, RCS Grade 6 Band - Tues. March 15 - 1:15p.m.
Grade 8 Band - Wed. March 16 - 9:00a.m.
Jazz Band - Wed. March 16 - 4:00p.m.
Grade 7 Band - Thurs. March 17 - 3:30p.m.
Junior Winds - Fri. March 18 - 2:15p.m.

Jodie Blackshaw Clinics - March 21, and March 22
-We are very lucky to have Jodie Blackshaw working with some of our students.
-Please watch for permission forms

This Week
In Grade 6 Band 
We are in the final preparation for the Optimist Festival.    Students have been asked to play their Optimist pieces for us.   This is so that we can help find the trouble spots and help students identify the spots they should be practicing.   Students should have trouble spots identified and those are the sections that need practicing.  

Grade 6's this week had a "mock" festival experience.   We pretended that it was festival day and did as we would the day of festival.    We will practice this again next week with fewer prompts.

In Grade 7 Band 
 Grade 7's have been asked to make sure they know their festival music well enough to play alone.  We will be checking students on their music.    Grade 7's worked very hard at tempo changes.   They did an extremely nice job of watching and carrying out some extremely challenging tempo changes.   In order to do this, students must know their music well enough to look up lots!   We had a "mock" festival experience this week and will have another "mock" festival next week.

In Grade 8 Band
We are also getting ready for our performance.  Pieces should be close to memorized.  Our dress rehearsal will be on Wednesday, March 9th at 9:30-10:30.  Please continue to listen to the recordings and practice your parts.

Last Week Before the Break!

Reminders:
-Grade 7/8 Jazz Band clinic with Professor Foote from U. of T. on Tues. Feb. 9 from 4:00-5:00p.m.
- Grade 6 Jazz Band 4-5 on Monday
- Grade 7/8 Jazz Band Tuesday and Wednesday afterschool
- Grade 6 Junior Winds on Wednesday at 7:30a.m.
Grade 7/8 Junior Winds on Thursday at 7:30a.m.
- ALL STUDENTS ARE REMINDED TO TAKE INSTRUMENTS HOME FOR THE BREAK!

All Groups
Students are reminded to make sure they are practicing all of our Optimist music.    This coming up week we have several classes who are away and so students are reminded that they should keep up with practicing and make sure instruments go home over the break.  All students are working on details for their Optimist performance.  

We have begun handing out information about the Optimist Festival.   By Monday all notes should be handed out.   Students are reminded to make sure permission forms get handed in.