December 2017 Mt. Vernon Music Boosters Volume 3, Issue 6

Soon, the auditorium will be reso-nating with the sounds of the season as the bands and choirs prepare to dazzle man and beast.

All concerts in Mt. Vernon school buildings are free to attend.

Bands

The Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, 8th-grade band, and indoor percussion ensemble will present a holiday show at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 14. “All bands will perform holi-day music in addition to standard band pieces,” said Mr. Ellinger. The Symphonic Band has been working on three pieces. The Wind Ensemble is working on four pieces, including “Sleigh Ride,” which by tradition will end the concert.

Mr. Day’s 6th– and 7th-grade bands will perform at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 20, in the MVMS gymnasium.

Choirs

The middle-school choir will be the first of the musical groups to perform in the MVHS auditorium. Mrs. Stew-art’s students will perform tonight at 7 p.m.

A week later they will perform “Forever Christmas,” a musical revue, at the Indianapolis Zoo, at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 14. Their stage will be across from the orangutan building. Enjoy-ing this performance requires zoo admission (or zoo membership).

Before the middle-school choir entertains the orangutans and zoo patrons, the Expressions Women’s Choir will sing at the zoo. That concert will be tonight at 6 p.m.

All MVHS choirs and a cappella groups will go caroling, caroling ‘round the school to promote their upcoming concert. They will do this Friday during first, second, SRT, and

fourth blocks.

The choral Winter Concert featuring all choirs and a cappella groups will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12.

C A L E N D A R Tonight: MVMS Winter

Choral Concert, 7 p.m.

Saturday: Snow Whirl,

8-11 p.m.

Sunday: Princess Snow

Whirl, 2-5 p.m.

Dec. 12: MVHS choral

concert, 7 p.m.

Dec. 14: Winter band

concert, 7 p.m.

Dec. 20: MVMS band

concert, 7 p.m.

Dec. 23-Jan. 7: Winter

break

Dec. 25: Christmas

Dec. 31: New Year’s Eve

The numbers are in:

67 total high-school solos 15 total high-school ensem-bles 82 total events 89 percent participation

17 total 8th-grade solos 4 total 8th-grade ensembles 21 total events 84 percent participation

The 89 percent participa-tion rate for the high-school bands reflects the winter guard members who have a competition the same day as district Solo & Ensemble. “The conflicts have been too great in the past, so we are not dealing with it anymore,” said Mr. Ellinger. “We have only two stu-dents who are voluntarily not participating.”

Students who didn’t sign up for Solo & Ensemble—including the winter guard members—will be required to perform a solo in front of the class.

Signups for solos exceed ensembles

F U N T R I V I A

The band and choir programs

used to share the website at

mvhsmusic.org.

Now the choir program has

its own website here. Check

it out!

Snow Whirl dances benefit bands, choirs

Bands, choirs to spread holiday cheer

The annual Snow Whirl dance always attracts a large crowd, making it the biggest fundraiser for the music department.

And with the addition of Princess Snow Whirl, the band stands to ben-efit even more.

The profits from Saturday’s Snow Whirl dance are split between the band and choir programs. “We calcu-late the hours of volunteers from band and choir and then split profits by a percentage,” explained Erin Flick, booster treasurer. Those per-centages are determined by how many volunteers each program pro-vides. “Last year, the split was 22 percent choir, 78 percent band,” she said.

The band’s Snow Whirl split averages roughly $7,000 yearly. From that, $3,000 goes into the operating budg-et; the rest is split evenly between winter guard and indoor percussion.

At last year’s inaugural Princess Snow Whirl, 85 girls were transformed into

princesses. “Last year, we made almost $700 from Princess Snow Whirl,” Mrs. Flick said. “We are hop-ing for a higher number this year!” All proceeds from Princess Snow Whirl benefit the bands; the choirs aren’t involved in this dance.

Princess Snow Whirl is proving to be a big hit. Little girls love the transfor-mation and the dancing. “Ava

thought it was a magical day,” Mr. Ellinger said of his daughter’s reac-tion to last year’s event.

“This year, we have a goal of at least $8,000 coming from the whole Snow Whirl weekend for the band,” Mrs. Flick said. With 162 little girls—nearly double last year’s number—signed up to attend Princess Snow Whirl, that goal just might be reached!

Mr. Ellinger and his daughter, Ava, enjoyed the inaugural Princess Snow Whirl last year.

In early 2016, the Mt. Vernon Mu-sic Boosters set up an account with AmazonSmile, the online retailer’s community rewards program.

The band receives roughly $20 each quarter from AmazonSmile. Boosters would like to see that quar-terly amount increase.

If you plan to order Christmas gifts through Amazon, sign up your ex-isting Amazon or Amazon Prime ac-count with AmazonSmile. Every time you purchase through AmazonSmile,

the company donates 0.5 percent of the purchase price of your eligible purchases to the Music Boosters.

To enroll your account, go to smile.amazon.com. While there, consider installing the Amazon Assis-tant button on your web browser toolbar. You can use this button to

take you directly to AmazonSmile before you make any purchases.

For your purchases to benefit the band, you must always start at smile.amazon.com. Until Amazon

comes out with an app for it, Ama-zonSmile isn’t available for purchases made through smart phones, Kindles, or tablets. To buy a book for your Kindle or a digital music download, for example, you must start at smile.amazon.com (on your comput-er browser) for the purchase to count.

B R I E F S Butler hosting music specialty days

Butler University is hosting two music specialty days in January: one for brass instruments and one for double-reed instru-ments. Both events are open to middle and high-school stu-dents of all abilities. What’s more, both are free!

The second annual Brass Day on Monday, Jan. 15 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) will feature But-ler’s brass faculty, but also will include special guest Tony Kniffen, principal tuba for the Indianapolis Symphony Orches-tra. For details and to register, click this link.

A highlight of the fifth annual Double Reed Day will be the final concert at 4 p.m., with all attendees performing in massed oboe, bassoon, and combined double-reed ensem-bles. Double Reed Day is set for Saturday, Jan. 20. For more information and to register, click this link.

NineStar grants $1,000 to band The Mt. Vernon Music Boosters recently received a $1,000 check from NineStar Connect as part of the company’s Opera-tion Round-Up program.

The program distributes funds to charitable organizations within NineStar’s service areas. The funds are the result of NineStar customers who volun-tarily have their bills rounded up to the next highest dollar.

The money went toward the purchase of a new marimba.

Band benefits from AmazonSmile

Chinese visitors check out band rehearsal

Indy symphony hosting young musicians contest

Band helps ring in holiday

Each year, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra hosts the Michael Ben and Illene Komisarow Young Musicians Contest to give students a chance to win money and to perform with the orchestra’s professional musicians.

Students interested in competing must submit a complete application packet by Jan. 1, 2018. Auditions will be March 10; the contest finals concert will be March 11 at the Cristel DeHaan Fine Arts Center on the University of Indianapolis campus.

The student awarded first prize will receive $2,500 and will perform the winning concerto with the ISO at the annual Donor/Volunteer Con-cert. Second– and third-place monetary prizes will also be awarded, as will discretionary finalist awards of excellence.

Application packets and more information are available here. Let’s see Mt. Vernon represented well in this contest!

On Dec. 3, the jazz band and the drum line helped Fortville open the holiday season. The jazz band had its first performance of the school year at Breakfast with Santa, hosted by the Fortville Optimists. Later that day, the drum line and color guard marched in the Fortville Winter Festival parade.

On Nov. 28, the Wind Ensemble had two visitors from China as part of a corporation-wide effort to establish partnerships with schools abroad.

They were at MVHS to visit classes in each subject for about 30 minutes each. They have been visiting all the schools in the district.

“They were very impressed with the band,” Mr. Ellinger said.

The two visitors are educators in Anshan, Liaoning province. Ma Jun teaches English at School #13 in An-shan; Wang Jin is a vice principal at School #13.

“We have been having dialog with educators from China, Taiwan, Ger-many, Spain, and South Korea for the

past two years,” said Mr. Roach, MVHS principal. “We are seeking partnerships with high schools in different countries to host their stu-dents and send our students abroad. We want to have the exchanges both ways to give our students experienc-es with as many different cultures as we can.”

Mt. Vernon representatives met educators from Anshan at the Global Education Forum in Kokomo last year, he said.

“Also, (Superintendent) Dr. Robbins and (Assistant Superintendent) Dr. Long have connections to educators in Anshan that predate their coming to Mt. Vernon.”

“The (Chinese) educators have been

very impressed with our school,” Mr. Roach said.

Ma Jun addresses the Wind Ensemble.