Clintonville Community Band 10/7

This was a rehearsal; with no performances imminent, we did run throughs of Christmas music to see what we would like to plan on doing for the holiday concert in December. In the main, Christmas music is Christmas music - though there were a few surprises, including a Fantasia on Greensleeves by Elliot Del Borgo and Emmanuel Variants by Robert Foster. They are very similar works both in sound and in structure. They took the well-known melodies and gave them a number of variations which took them in directions quite different from the original sources. I liked them both, although they might be a little heavy-handed for the holiday concerts which are usually light in content.

We have had five horns in the section for the past few weeks after losing a few and being down to two at times during the summer. We always seem to have a good section with this group despite the constant turnover we have. Oddly, the other band that I'm in, the Westerville Concert Band has a pretty steady lineup of horns, usually six to eight people, but we always struggle - even when we play easier material. The orchestra that I've played in for years, the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, has the best of both worlds - a steady lineup of solid musicians in the horn section. Unfortunately, I've had to step aside from that group because of a conflict with my job.