Hi to Both Current and Former Barnstable Town Band Members,
I know that you are not used to receiving emails from BTB during this time of the year, but I did want to wish all of you a very Happy New Year and hope that your December Holidays resulted in ample pleasant time spent with friends and family.
First, let me put your minds to rest….we are NOT planning to start 2025 BTB rehearsals during the winter months, if that is the news that you thought this email was bringing to you. Instead, as we normally would do, BTB rehearsals for the 2025 Summer Concert Series will begin on Wednesday, April 23 at 7pm at Barnstable Intermediate School in Hyannis. [Note that available CC Community Orchestra members, as usual, will normally join us in mid-May while they have their summertime break.] You will be receiving another email from BTB as we approach Springtime, both as a reminder and to determine which of you will be planning to join us this year. A bit more about that later.
I really wanted to update you on some of the things that have (and haven’t) been happening with the BTB organization since our last concert in August 2024…
1 – I’d like to thank the 6 of you who took the time to complete the BTB Rating Sheets for the songs that were in our folders this past year. Some of you also included comments with the sheets which I will eventually compile and forward to Pat. I did compile the rating information and the results were used to remove about 15 less-popular pieces from the 2024 folders. The highest rating for any of the songs was +5, while the lowest was -1. The highest rated pieces were: Eagles on Tour, Encanto, Band of Brothers, Beauty and the Beast, Sinatra in Concert, Toccata for Band and West Side Story. All of these pieces remain in the folders at this time. Items which were removed had ratings of -1 and 0. Among those were SIBA March, Capriccio Italien, and Victory at Sea.
2 – Two items were added to the folders for possible use next year. Instant Concert (by Harold Walters) is a piece that is a “medley” of about 30 different 4 to 8 measure excerpts of notable songs played in rapid-fire succession in a of 3 to 4 minute span. Although it can be used within the course of a normal concert, it can also be used to quickly terminate a concert early, if the weather turns unexpectedly bad during an outdoor performance. Many of you have played it before elsewhere and are familiar with it, but for those of you who are not, here is a online link for you to be able to preview it: https://youtu.be/jJFnuCdizlY The other addition is actually a replacement for an existing BTB arrangement of Showboat. If you recall our first rehearsal last year, we found that some of the parts had been corrupted in our Guy Jones arrangement (some parts had actually been physically sliced and diced) to the point that it had been unusable. Perhaps this was done some years go to cut into its 12-minute duration! The replacement arrangement is by Calvin Custer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuSAyDC2BuI). It is unfortunately missing a Conductor’s Score and if this turns out to be a problem, I have been working on trying to put our old very lengthy Jones arrangement in some sort of usable order so we might be able to fall back on it if we’d like to.
3 – That is some of what has been happening, but unfortunately there is one thing that hasn’t been happening. Several band members have asked me if there is some reason why they haven’t received their 2024 stipend. It is probably not much comfort to anyone to know that I haven’t received mine either. The only good news is that I won’t have to include it on my 2024 Tax Return. But for those who have been looking forward to receiving it for Holiday spending money, this may have been rather disappointing. I know that there was some communication problem between our BTB Treasurer, Dan Anthony, and the town a few months back having to do with an EIN or Tax ID number, but hopefully that has been resolved, although I am not sure why it would affect the 2024 stipends. In any case, neither Pat Riley nor I have any control of the stipend distribution, so I would recommend that you contact Dan with any questions or requests you may have about this. Briefly stated, any band member who participated in at least 3 concerts this past year is eligible for a 2024 stipend. It won’t be a lot but it does help to offset gasoline/travel costs for our members.
4 – Now, I’ll touch on some of the things that are in process for BTB this year. We have initiated a Mass. Cultural Council Grant request for the band. The application was filed in October and, if it is approved, it will be awarded during the next three months. The request is to assist BTB in trying to gain audience and member volume that may have been lost as a result of the 2020-21 Covid interruption of our operations. More specifically, it attempts to acquire limited funding to help rebuild our Percussion instrumentation. The band currently ONLY has a Bass Drum available for percussionist use. Hopefully the grant will allow us to acquire a set of bells, or cymbals, or even a triangle or a tambourine! This might make it easier to staff the section, since some of these items can be played by a willing novice. There also is hoped to be funding for promotional materials, like uniform band hats that would improve our identity with regard to the public and maybe even a few dollars for a few more signs. Please keep your fingers crossed for our grant request to be approved so that we can continue to try and build our “product” for the increased enjoyment of our audience and ourselves.
5 – The final thing in process for 2025 is a DRAFT of a new BTB website. In addition to acting as an additional publicity and communication tool, I am hoping that it will also act as a repository for some of BTB’s 75-year history. We have started by creating an introduction page, a calendar/schedule page, as well as a means of contacting us directly via email. We also started to build a history page that contains information on some of BTB’s past conductors and we will eventually add a section on BTB’s lengthy search for a serviceable performance “home”. This is where you can help out. Bob K has already helped me research and proof some of the information. However, the more of you that review/verify the site information and help contribute to it, the more interesting our site will be to the public and the more likely we will become more “in tune” with our audience over time. So feel free to visit the site (https://barnstabletownband.wordpress.com/), subscribe to or follow it, and review what is there. There are some holes in the historical information that you can help to “fill” and we can entertain any simple ideas you may have for the site in the future. We can always use different types of band-related photos for both the website and for our Facebook page.
So now you are mostly up to date. But I want to emphasize that just because we are not yet in our Spring-rehearsal or Summer-concert mode, it doesn’t mean that there is nothing that you can do to help us get ready for the upcoming concert season. It’s not too soon to start recruiting band members for the 2025 season. It is better to try to recruit from other active bands and schools while they are in session rather than to play catch-up just a few weeks before the first concert, as we seem to have tried to do in the past. I seem to recall that we used to have a few more people join us from the CC Community Orchestra in mid-May (i.e. during their summer break) about 5 years ago. So, at their Winter concert. I approached members of the percussion section to see if they would be available/interested in joining us in May. None of them were available, but I was given the name of a Mark Vasquez (not sure of the spelling) of Hyannis who we might ask if any of his percussion students might be interested. I haven’t been able to find contact information for Mark after trying for a number of weeks, but if any of you know him, perhaps you can pick up the ball on your end and see if he might be able to recommend someone.
That’s about it for now. Looking forward to seeing everyone again at our first rehearsal on April 23.
Take care and stay well!
BTB Librarian
