Informational Meeting: 08-24-2017
Prescott Band & Orchestra Boosters
Parent Meeting
Thursday, August 24, 2017
7:00 P.M. - Band Room
Parent Meeting
Weekly Practice - 5 days a week is our recommended amount of practice time, but we will settle for 7 days! You’ve spent too much money on an instrument not to hear your child play it every night.
The importance of commitment to the ensemble - The students and I work hard each day, trying to get the ensemble to sound the best it can. Each student is a valuable “link in our chain” and if a link is missing, the “chain” won’t be as strong. It is vitally important that each student be committed to our ensemble. We understand that there will be conflicts with school sponsored activities, and when these activities are both performing/competing at the same time the student needs to make a difficult decision about where they will perform that day.
I have done my best to give you all of our dates for the school year, I hope these dates will help you in planning your family vacations and events.
Tuxes and Gowns – 93% of the students have been fitted for their concert attire, thank you to Adrienne Hinton and her moms who have helped! Boys need to provide a white undershirt, black dress shoes and black dress socks to wear for all concerts. Girls need to have proper footwear for the concerts. Girls gowns can be washed in cold water, inside out and hang dried. Boys can launder their white shirts, but the tux coat and pants need to be dry-cleaned. The boosters will launder the gowns and tuxes at the end of the school year.
Concert Nights – arrive no later than 6:30 for our 7:00 concert. Student must remain at the concert for the entire concert to support the other students in our program, and the student needs to stay in their concert attire until the concert is finished.
Remind Codes – can be found in the band handbook that was sent home on the first day, I can share these codes after the meeting if you wish.
Pride of Prescott @ptownpride
Pride of Prescott Leadership @ptownlead
Drum Line @ptowndrums
Symphonic Band @1symphonic
String Orchestra @phsstring
Wind Ensemble @phswind
Color Guard @ptownguard
Jazz Ensemble @phsjazz
Band and Orchestra Boosters @pbob2016
Solo and Ensemble Festival – Saturday, January 20 at Prescott High School
Regional Auditions – each student is encouraged to audition for Regionals on January 27. Etudes are available from Mr. Bradstreet.
Prescott High School will be hosting the auditions this year, I will need a small army of parents to volunteer that Saturday to help monitor the audition rooms, and register students as they arrive. More information will be available as the event approaches.
Regional site is Lake Havasu HS on February 15 – 17.
Area Concert Festival – March 3 at Highland HS in Gilbert, AZ. All Concert students are required to attend, this is our programs AzMerit testing equivalent.
All-State Auditions are available for any student who makes the Regional Band or Orchestra and retains their eligibility through the Regional process. Auditions are March 9 and 10, with most of our auditions scheduled for Saturday.
All-State will be held at the University of Arizona on April 19 – 21.
Spring Trip to Disneyland will be Thursday, April 12 – Sunday, April 15. We will leave from school that Thursday and will drive home after the park closes on Saturday night. Generally we arrive back in Prescott around 7:00 AM.
Cost of the Spring Trip is still being worked on, here is what we know today. Disneyland 2 day Hopper Tickets are $183, Medieval Times Dinner on Thursday night is $43. The cost of three charter coaches is $80 if we have 150 students, or $112 if we have 101 students. Hotels have been contacted and we can reserve rooms for $140 plus tax a night for a 4-star hotel and the 2 3-star hotels that have been contacted have not gotten back to us. Currently the cost is above $350 and below $400.
Jazz Recording Session is currently planned for the Tuesday - Thursday after school is over. We will have CD’s for sale in spring of 2019.
Parental Involvement
I need your help; just one person can’t run this program. By getting involved and donating a little bit of your time, you will be helping me to provide more opportunities for all of our ensembles. The money that is raised by the booster club benefits each member. The funds raised by the boosters are used to purchase music, defray the cost of meals on performance trips, purchase/repair concert attire and marching band uniforms, purchase instruments and help with families that cannot afford to pay school expenses so that their child can participate fully. The boosters don’t raise money for students, they raise money for the program and the program requires the help of parents to maintain its tradition of excellence. Please consider being our President-Elect or our Member At Large. And please give of your time, I know how valuable that time is, I’ve given my time to this program for 29 years.
I yield the rest of my time to the Prescott Band and Orchestra Boosters