Madrid Blog

Nice article on the Band's upcoming Madrid Trip...

http://lzmadrid2013.blogspot.com/

Harmonizing with Rare Disease Efforts-LZ Band

More Press about Lake Zurich HS Band!!!
http://globalgenes.org/lake-zurich-high-school-pep-band-harmonizes-rare-disease-efforts-for-sweet-caroline/

Sousa Trouble on Fox News!

SOUSA ISSUES at the Parade!!!

Master Indian musician teaches LZ students

On November 22, lake zurich high school students were visited by master of the sitar and the tabla, Sandip Burman. Mr. Burman and one of his current students spent over an hour entertaining and teaching students about the intricacies of Indian classical music. The music is so complex that it was hard to know where to start when listening, so this gave students an introduction so that they would know what to listen for. It's a good combination of composed music and improvisation. It has it's similarities to jazz but also much stricter rules like western classical music. On the tabla, students were introduced to rhythmic solfege, a concept that is completely foreign in western music systems. Senior Jacqueline Brown commented that the rhythmic complexities and solfege have much more in common with African and middle eastern systems.

Mr. Burman's rapport with the students was light-hearted and understanding of their interested but uneducated ears asking them from time to time if they were bored. The students made it clear that they were not, continually asking questions that made it clear that they wanted to understand what was going on. They were amazed at how he was able to pull emotion out of the sitar and the significant tension and release of the music. Mr. Burman compared the sitar composition with a four movement symphony. The first movement was a slow introduction of the melody, the second ads rhythm to the melody and some variation, the third much more activity and increased improvisation and the fourth slowing back down and reminding the listener of the themes.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this. Hopefully a few students will want to pursue further understanding of the music. Regardless, the experience will forever help lake zurich students into a world of music that was largely misunderstood and foreign to them.

Mi Burrito Sabanero and Chicago Parade

Hey Band!

Here's a link to a Midi file for you to practice with. It will open in Itunes or Media Player..
Mi Burrito Midi File


You can also find our more about the parade at http://www.chicagofestivals.org/


Thanks!

IMEA All-District Band Members 2013!

Congratulations to our 10 IMEA All-District members this year!

Katie Brown-Flute

Lauren Mazurkiewicz-Flute

Megan Holbrook-Clarinet

Mark Schwartz-Clarinet

Claire Van der Bosch-Bass Clarinet

Tommy Greco-Alto Sax

Donny Gross-Alto Sax

Timmy McCullough-Trumpet

Jeremy Whetstone-Trumpet

Anthony Foglia-Percussion

Full IMEA RESULTS 2013

Piano Bar to be Auctioned off at Band-o-Rama

This 1915 Vintage Upright Grand was retrofit into a Bar with storage, and mirror and wine glass racks. The sound board was removed so it is not heavy!!!  Beautiful piece of furniture and conversation starter!

Congrats to our IMEA All-District Jazz Members!

 

Alex Pontious

Donny Gross

Jeremy Whetstone

Tommy Greco

Timmy McCullough

Jared Bacardi

Grant Wallace

 

These students were selected from over 200 students in our area schools auditioning for 4 jazz ensembles. They will participate in a day of rehearsals and a performance on November 16, 2013 at Lakes Community High School in Antioch, IL

 

Great Work!!!

Homecoming 2013

Go guard!!!Nice job on the hallway deco..

MB to Elementary Schools

Drum Majors at May Whitney!

NU Band day

A great day at Northwestern!  Cats win and a great halftime show. Thanks to all the LZ band students that made the trip great!

Official invitation to march in the cabalgata de reyes. Congrats band! Only the 9th band from america ever to be given this honor!

Back At IT!!!

Welcome back LZ Band! Thanks for an outstanding band camp. We're off to a great start to a great year!  Just a reminder that this Saturday is our band car wash. We can use anyone's help. Thanks to everyone that signed up, but you can come even if you didn't.

Some great events that I want to make sure are on everyone calendars-Northwestern Band day-Sept. 7 (everyone's going!). Thanksgiving Day Parade downtown Chicago on Thanksgiving day. This is a great opportunity to be in a big parade and a great warm up for everyone heading to Spain with us. We need everyone to put our best foot forward.

Spain-Last call for Spain trippers beginning of September. We'd love to have you!

Thanks again for all your efforts at camp. I'm thankful that the weather cooperated and for all the great work from our drum majors to give the camp an extra dose of fun. Thanks Amy, Logan and Sabina!

See you on the 26th!

Low Down brass band at Lzhs summer band

Who said 5th graders cant jam!

Diggin LDBB!

We'd morning at lz

Low Down Brass Band!

LDBB at LZ summer band this morning!

Congratulations seniors 2103!

Sandip Burman to come to Lake Zurich High School

Next fall, Tabla and Sitar musician, Sandip Burman will be coming to Lake Zurich to give a performance/demonstration for Lake Zurich HS Students. We will be selecting only 100 students to be a part of this event. You will have an upclose experience with one of the most exciting and enjoyable Indian classical musicians in the world.

 

This is not something you will want to miss. It is completely funded by Lake Zurich's Fine Performance Music Advocates-but it is not cheap for us to do. This is why we will be screening all the applications and choosing the 100 students that we feel will get the most out of it.  That should be You!  Apply today.

Googledocs application-Sandip Burman

 

Wind ensemble seniors 2013

Last day of band! You will be missed. Thanks for 4 great years!

Percussion Concert 2013!

Nothing fancy, Just clips from last nights outstanding Percussion Concert. Thanks LZHS Percussionists for a great show and to Brett Baxter for his fine leadership!

 

 Freshmen Percussionists-just a short clip...Sorry!

 

Here's the Symphonic Band percussionists playing a nice Mexican Marimba tune. Very cool!

 

Finally half of the Wind Ensemble piece. Very well done...

 

Band exchange 2013!

LZ Band Blog http://tlzbb.blogspot.com/
Thanks to all the great lzhs band students for another successful band exchange!

Why I love teaching Music... (aka How I ended up here...)

Why I love teaching Music... (aka How I ended up here...)

I've never publically written anything that discusses why I love to teach music. Sometimes it can be very motivational to remind yourself why you do the things you do.

I went to college as a clarinet major because it was the one thing that I did well that wasn't also something that I had to work overly hard at. I suppose, maybe that's not a good reason to do something, but at the time I had no reason to think that I wouldn't continue to to enjoy improving on the clarinet.

Turns out that college performance, while enjoyable showed me how difficult it is to make it in performance, and, quite honestly, I didn't have what it takes to make a living performing. I could play, I could keep up with others, but I didn't LIVE to practice. I enjoyed practicing, but it had to have it's limits, I couldn't practice 4 hours a day and stay sane...
My freshmen year, there was a sign in our practice facility looking for student musicians to come and fill in on a high school band concert. To this day, I still remember what the teacher looked like, but I could not tell you what school I was at. But as it turns out, that day was the first time I saw public education from outside the constraints of public education. In other words, I was an outside observer for the first time. I didn't sit there annoyed that the teacher wasn't using my time wisely, or that we were learning something that I had NO interest in whatsoever. I was being paid to watch a teacher try to make the most musical experience he could for his high school band. The band was very small-I don't know the reason why-it could have been he wasn't the greatest teacher and was driving students away, or it could be that the students were not making it out of their feeder programs to the high school and so there were not enough students to make a full ensemble. Whatever it was, I saw someone working to create the best performance he could, so his students would understand why music is special.  All that to say-I'm so thankful to whoever the teacher was that I had that opportunity-it really changed the direction of my life at JUST the right time.

The next week, I went to my advisor and asked what I needed to do to switch to the music education program. After some discussion, it seemed as if it would be an easy thing to do, but I had to take one year of marching band-I had to join NUMB. I was not so sure about this. While I look back on my high school marching band experience fondly, when I went to college I had no interest in joining marching band ever again. I was burnt out-perhaps this is the reason I have never been interested in competing here at LZ-I saw that I did not want to continue marching band not only because I was burnt out, but also because I didn't see the point in being in a marching band if you weren't competing (how deluded I was...)

All that to say, I did end up joining Northwestern's Marching band the next fall-turns out it was a GREAT move for me-I found out that marching band does not have to be competitive. It could actually be very enjoyable and of a high quality as a band than entertains the crowd and supports the football team. In fact, the "entertainment" side of marching band is often lost by those of the "competitive" band world. The focus is so much on perfection, that the average joe has no appreciation for the 100s of hours that go into perfecting a show-100s of hours that I did not want to put into marching band...

My first job was teaching in Kankakee-assisting the HS band, assisting the MS band, running the HS jazz ensemble and teaching 5th and 6th grade band at King Grade School. I couldn't have had a better first job. The job itself was less than ideal and the program was only going to grow so much for many reasons, but what I enjoyed most about the program was the students-they were down to earth, hard-working and many of them were actually interested in learning music (a big bonus).

As I would find out later in life, the bands at the time weren't that great-but I thought they were. We worked hard-certainly there were many things in the way to real success. Very few students were taking private lesson, very few could afford to really upgrade instruments. But all things considered, it really was an eye-opening experience. Not only did I learn how to teach band, really teach all the instruments, I also learned about another culture. Kankakee was pretty racially mixed, the grade school I taught at was more than half African-American. It was a great place to teach, and I believe more than ever that it was there that I learned that kids were kids no matter where they came from or who they were. They all had the same desire to do something well.

I didn't try to leave, but Lake Zurich opened up and I had student taught in the school-and I loved the set up-jazz band during the day, 2 concert bands and music theory. It was a great school with lots of potential. As I said, it was the ONLY job I applied for that year-but it was a good fit, and I did get the job.

NEXT POST: Lake Zurich HS, the beginning...

The Cabalgata de Reyes parade

Just thinking about the parade that we'll be performing in at the end of this year. Here's a little clip of some of the acts that were in last year's parade. There was only one American band in the parade last year, you can see them if you watch the 30:00 parade video on youtube, but it's long... (be sure it's the parade in Madrid, not Barcelona)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9xbxOtYm1s

What a great parade-fun to see it at night, has a element of an Electrical Light parade... I hope to give little clips and things to whet everyone's appetite for the trip!

T

See pictures of Jonathan Newman's Visit

Jonathan Newman visits LZHS!

Composer Jonathan Newman www.jonathannewman.com visited LZHS today to work with the Wind Ensemble. The band has now commissioned 5 pieces as part of a commissioning consortium of schools led by Jim Kull at St. Charles East. Each year a composer is chosen, each school contributes to the cost of the piece and then we all premier it in the spring. This year Jonathan Newman made a trip to the midwest to work with each group on the piece and talk about being a composer.

Band Site in the Works

Hey LZ Band Family...

We're in the process of updating this site to become the main source for information regarding LZ Bands. The high school site will still have basic information regarding classes, contacts etc., but this site will be used in tandem with the Band Boosters site to help promote and inform everyone what a great band program we have. If you have ideas how we can improve the site-let us know!

Thanks-