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	Nepean Concert Band - MusicFest 2001

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AGM on Wednesday November 25th
Starting 7:30pm, duration 1 hour
Rehearsal to start 8:40pm (after a short break)
Please let us know if you're interested in joining the executive in any position - we will need two additional people, as two long-standing members have decided they're ready to step back and let someone else come aboard!

Hi folks. Today is Wednesday, July 21 at lunch time. Hopefully, some of you will see this before this evening's performance.

Thanks to all who were able to make it out to Chelsea last night, particularly to those who had a little trouble finding the place but kept trying and ultimately joined us as your musical contributions (and your folders)were gratefully received!

Please note the couple of small changes in the line-up, yet again.

1) Godspell is on for tonight but without the singer so you need to play all the bits we left out when we played with Rev. Baldwin.

2) Mercury. Trombones, please have a little look at the section at "D", perhaps together as you are warming up this evening. You're good at this but we haven't played this piece since the Rideau Place gig and the confidence of this fanfare section depends largely on how you guys launch it.

3) Some notes on “Sweet Charity”……..

You all do a great job with this from the point of pure entertainment value but there are some nuances and details that would make it stronger. I considered delaying this piece until the next concert but , as we need next week’s rehearsal on other material, I’m leaving the piece on tonight’s program and counting on your help to polish things a bit by considering both the background on the composition and some technical details I’ve written out. Thank you in advance for investing this effort; I really appreciate your commitment to the best job we can do.

The story is loosely based on a Fellini film called Nights of Cabiria about a Roman prostitute. Director Bob Fosse called in Neil Simon to write the libretto for the show and Simon provided an entry point to the character’s journey that North American audiences could accept, recreating the lead character as Charity Hope Valentine, a woman who works as a dance hostess at the Fan-Dango club in NYC, a sort of 60’s take on the earlier ten-cents-a-dance establishments. Though it is clear that some of the girls use this venue as a place to pick up “tricks”, Simon leaves Charity’s own history deliberately vague, focusing, instead, on her true character, quirky, full of optimism and determined to find true love, just as her name suggests.

In the course of the play, Charity is pursued by an Italian film director, (at once paying homage to the source of the material while suggesting the darker version of Charity’s situation), and by the nerdy, nervous Oscar, with whom she gets stuck in elevators and on ferris wheels. These scenes with Oscar provide great opportunity for comedic moments while allowing us to see his uptight and neurotic side and just how much salvation Charity can provide for the man smart enough to see that she, alone, isn’t in need of help.

Ultimately, however, Oscar cannot go through with marriage, despite his claim that he can deal with her past and occupation. He leaves Charity at the alter and the play ends with her determination to make good on her new direction on her own, hopefully, joyfully, but without apology.

Even thought the audience doesn’t necessarily know the lyrics or the plot, our understanding of the role each song plays in the story will inform our performance. To that end, please consider the following:

“Big Spender”
Intro and Section A This is suggestive, a little bit bawdy, but not really raunchy.
- Be loud but not overly so.
- The triangle ping in bars 2 and 4 should be almost late. It's about suspense and anticipation.
- Be careful not to rush. Enjoy the swing feel and hang back.
Section B
- this is lighter and again, suggestive, as if the previous section had taken us to the edge of something a little too risqué and we‘re taking a step back. It also needs clarity of the contrapuntal lines as these lines represent the different girls in the dance hall, each trying to entice a prospective man, but only as a dance partner with mere hints of anything else.
Return to Ab concert
- here, you can afford to “lay it on” a bit, closer to burkesque; let’s just not play this whole first song this way as it’s too much !

“It’s Nice Face” - Section C
Charity is considering this nervous fellow she has met and while the melodic foreground is all about her calm assessment of the potential of the situation, there needs to be a little bit of rhythmic energy in the background, provided by the light, clear and articulate approach to the accompaniment and bass line in order to communicate the nervous energy of first meetings.
- trombones and trumpets/cornets use a deliberate contrast between tenuto and staccato notes in figure and pay attention to phrasing ((2X2bar + 4 Bar) twice
- clarinets use nice full, earthy tone and stay with the long notes using a little dynamic arch
- 10th bar of C: full value quarter on beat one
- last 8 bars before Meno Mosso, everyone use full valued notes; Charity is becoming convinced and the added weight communicates this conviction.

“I’m a Brass Band” - Section D
- pure joy; pure excitement and you do this very well already
- just be careful with the syncopation and the accents in the 13th to 16th bars of D - much more fun the way it’s written!
Section E - go for bell tones, brass

“Where Am I Going?”
L’istesso (the same) tempo and onwards into F
- again, Coleman uses “Latin” to mean nervously agitated - a strange pairing but in this very hopeful character, it works
- just need to get into the Latin feel right away, complete with accurate syncopation and subtle accents on the syncopated stuff, whether or not there are accents written
- detached but not too short on the staccato quarters 5 and 7 before G
- everyone “lift” on beat 4 of the 2nd, 4th and 6th bars of G

“If They Could See me Now”
- mostly, we’re doing a great job with this folks.
- two suggestions to make this section better:
a) 5th through 8th bars of H, mopre accents to punch out cyclical syncopation gesture
b) no rit until 2nd bar of 4/4 time in the transition before J

“Sweet Charity”
Oscars profession of love and attempt to convince Charity of her worth because she’s not as confident as she seems.
Section J
- begins with two 1 bar phrases; don’t play through beat 4 into one so seamlessly
- pay attention to staccato on beat 1 of the 4th bar of J; we need lift and a little silence here before beat 2 - it’s all about the lift!
- 5th and 6th bars of J - play legato and with a bit of sinew here; it’s how we communicate the sincerity of the line, that everything the song says isn’t fluff but can be trusted
- 7th bar starts with light staccato in clarinet (again, the lift, the encouragement gesture)
- 9th bar reiterates in flute but starts full value and legato (again, about sincerity)
- 11th of J through to K, the weightier legato of Oscar’s sincerity sets up the return in the lower range of the big spender theme in a sort of insidious, fatalistic way

“Big Spender”
Section K
- the challenge is to start out dark, as Charity is back to the drawing board, but end joyfully; I have no advice for this, technically, except to keep the interpretive agenda in mind.

Andrew Hayden Park
Wednesday, July 21, 7:30 pm
Irving Berlin Showstoppers
Mercury
They Went Thataway!
Godspell
Selections from “Sweet Charity”
Tico Tico
The Genius of Ray Charles
Oliver!
Sun Dance
Themes from 007
Colonel Bogey
Pacem
Stevie Wonder: Then and Now

Andrew Hayden Park
Wednesday, August 4, 7:30 pm
Jubilate
First Suite in Eb
Colonial Song
Suite of Old American Dances
Music for a Darkened Theatre
Glenn Miller in Concert
Dixieland Jamboree
Four Dances from “West Side Story”
Pirates of the Caribbean
Big Band Bash (or Showcase?)

Andrew Hayden Park
Wednesday, August 11, 7:30 pm
The Standard of St. George
New York 1927
Andrew Lloyd Weber: A Symphonic Portrait
The Blues
The Thunderer
The Sixties
The High Barbaree
John Williams: The Symphonic Marches
Great Themes from Great Italian Movies
Instant Concert
Salute to Bob Hope