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Clay McKinney, AOA President

As auditions for All-State are taking place and wrapping up, a word is on my mind - expectations. I am thinking of this because our expectations are such a crucial factor in what our students achieve. We must continue to raise our expectations and recognize that our students far exceed the expectations of a bygone era. In preparing one of the trombone audition excerpts, I made the decision that trombone students this age could not be expected to read alto clef and that this particular excerpt should be transcribed to bass clef. I am a cellist and usually, when I am thinking of transcribing between C clef and F clef, I am thinking tenor clef and bass clef. In my haste, that’s exactly what I did and it was completely wrong. Who caught the mistake first? It was a student practicing the part for an audition. He knew from his own practice and knowledge that it was wrong. He asked his teacher to confirm and then emailed me to tell me of the mistake and sent me a link where I could find the correct excerpt in alto clef. When I asked, he responded that he was comfortable with both tenor and alto clef, educated me to the fact alto clef is quite common in the trombone parts of Romantic music and that, “alto clef is the standard if one plays alto trombone, which I do.” I am grateful for the reminder of the talent we have in our state.

Our next reminder will be at the All-State Festival concert on February 12 at 1 p.m. in the concert hall of the Moody Music building on the Campus of the University of Alabama. The Festival Orchestra will be performing An American in Paris Suite by George Gershwin/arr. John Whitney, Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia by Khachaturian, the winning composition of the All-State composition contest, and Finale to Symphony No. 5 by Dimitri Shostakovich. The Sinfonietta orchestra will perform Brook Green Suite by Holst and Concerto Grosso No. 1 by Bloch. Among a slew of great pieces the Consort orchestra will be performing an original modern work titled Amadare (Raindrops). This is an unprecedented line-up of music so I hope you will plan to attend.

Yes, All-State is just around the corner and things are coming along right on schedule. There are so many people to thank for this, too many really to name in this short piece because really truly I would have to name everyone. We all chip in to make this great and so the thank you goes to all the teachers, parents and students who come together to make AOA and the All-State Orchestra Festival so worthwhile. There are so many things that must be done and organized leading up to getting a student to All-State and giving a great performance at the final concert. It takes many people to keep us going and our AOA membership, the people in our state who are teaching our students to be the next generation of musicians, make up the majority, the core, the driving force of this effort. We have two general meetings of the AOA membership coming up. The first is in January during the AMEA conference. The AMEA conference is January 19-21 and is always great so please make plans to attend. The next general meeting takes place during the All-State festival on Saturday, February 11th from 2:00 - 5:00 pm in the Moody Music Building. Please plan to come and join in the discussion. It is a great time to meet everybody, learn what is going on, and let your voice be heard. We need all of us to stay involved and be active to continue to make this music festival one of the best there is.

We have had great success with our online registration this year. Thank you to everyone for being patient with us in this transition. We have had few snags in the process thanks to our brilliant Webmaster Kenyon Wilson. Kenyon is one of the pillars of our organization these days. If you see him at All-State, bow deeply. We do want to hear your feedback though. Let us know about your experience with it, what you think of the online registration process and how we can make it better. Probably, as you read this our amazing, wonderful, couldn’t-do-it-without-you district chairs are finalizing and packing up audition DVDs to mail. The results of the auditions will be posted by the end of the day November 14th. Students will need to register for the All-State festival by December 1st. Registration for the festival will also take place online. Like the audition registration, you will have the option of paying online using Paypal or mailing a check after you have registered online. As always you will have the option of submitting both registration and payment by mail. December 1st is the deadline for all registration info and registration payments to be submitted. After December 1st we will begin contacting alternates to fill un-accepted positions. This is to ensure that we mail out music to students in a timely manner so that they may begin practicing as soon as possible. So, please make sure students register by December 1st so that they may attend All-State and receive their music as soon as possible.

The festival is February 9-12 at the University of Alabama School of Music in Tuscaloosa, and all events are in the Moody Music Building. Student check-in starts on the afternoon of February 9th. Check-in will work the same as last year. All Festival Orchestra string students must check in between 12:00 and 1:30. Wind, brass, and percussion students will check-in from 2:30 - 3:00. The exact schedule will be sent with music to registered students, and seating auditions will take place early afternoon on Thursday. I encourage all participants to arrive early in order to have plenty of preparation time before the seating auditions. As mentioned earlier, a free public performance will begin at 1 PM on Sunday, February 12th, and families and friends are encouraged to attend. All participating students are expected to attend the entire concert.

For interested exhibiters here are four potential exhibit locations in the Moody Music Building during the Festival. Exhibitors may set up any time after 4:00 on Thursday, February 9 and remain until the concert is over on Sunday afternoon, February 12. This time window is the available time, but exhibitors are not required to be present at all times and may choose to use any periods within this time frame. There will be no reduction in fee for reduced usage. The AOA President, Clay McKinney, must receive all requests for exhibitor space via email at clay.mckinney@mps.k12.al.us before January 31, 2012. Two prime locations are available in the lobby. Fees are $500 for each spot and use of space includes up to three 6’ tables. A $100 deposit is required to reserve a lobby spot. Two other locations in the building, closer to rehearsal rooms but with less space, will be made available at $100 each to the first two requestors. Use of these spaces includes one 6’ table each. For more information, please visit our website and click on the 2012 festival link.
Be sure and make plans to attend and register for the AMEA conference in January at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel and Convention Center January 19-21. The AMEA Conference is a great time to inspire your teaching and reconnect with fellow educators from around the state. Last year was our first year there and was a great success, so this year looks to be even better. On Friday January 20th the Etowah Youth Symphony will be performing in the main concert hall. It is always a great pleasure to see one of our fabulous youth orchestras on the stage so I hope to see you there.

Like I said earlier, there are lots of people to thank for all of their help thus far this year as we have many people who work to keep things running smoothly. This especially includes our AOA Board: Felicia Sarubin - Secretary, Daniel Jamieson - Treasurer, Julie Hornstein - Executive Director and Marcy Wilson - Past-President. Of course we have to thank our ever-faithful district chairs, Daniel Hornstein & Daniel Jamieson, Roland Lister, Sarah Nordlund & Julia Sakharova, Dr. Anne Witt, Sarah Schrader and Felicia Sarubin. And of course there are always those folks that don’t have an official title but somehow end up on everyone’s speed dial, Mike Gagliardo, and Layla Humphries. And lastly we want to thank everyone at the Alabama Symphony. What a great group of people. Your knowledge, resources and willingness to share are invaluable to us, and we are most appreciative.

Good luck with auditions and other school performances in the meantime and I will look forward to seeing you, better yet, listening to you.