Hooray! Our first concert went great!

Friday was our concert with the band and orchestra. We had some early morning practices during the week, and then we got there at about 6:40 on Friday morning to set things up.

We planned to have the tables on the floor for the assemblies during the day, and up on the stage for the performance for the parents at night, but after looking at everything, we realized that would be SUCH a pain to move everything, so the principal and custodian raised our tables about 18 inches and the kids stood on the first step. I think it worked out just fine, and we didn’t ruffle any feathers insisting we move the tables up on stage. Those lovely red table covers are courtesy of my friend Janeen. It helps to have friends who are already teaching chime choirs in schools, because they can give advice, share music, and even let me borrow table covers. Of course, now I want to buy some fabric and make my own, but that can come later.

Here’s my group (minus two of them, who were running around who knows where) posing in front of the tables while the orchestra practices behind.

Here’s a couple of pictures that one of the moms took of the group while we were practicing.

She even got one of my leading them.

Even though one of my students couldn’t be there for the evening performance, we covered things pretty well. I think they did SO great! I think people were impressed that they could recognize the songs we played, and that it even sounded good. We played Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, Jingle Bells, and Jolly Old St. Nicholas. Little did I know that the band and orchestra would be playing those Christmas songs as well. But since we went first, people weren’t tired of the songs YET. My husband said he was surprised at how well they sounded. (Amazed is more like it.)

I got this message from one of the moms today,
Paige – Thank you so much for teaching M— chimes. I was so impressed tonight at the concert. Talk about a proud Mom moment. I didn’t realize how amazing chimes were, how beautiful they sound, how fun they are to watch and how much they have all learned in such a short time. I was beaming.

Love – M’s Mom

That brought tears to my eyes! This is why I am doing this! To bring the love of music and handbells to kids and parents.

The whole concert went quite well. The band teacher talked about how important music programs are, and plugged her band and orchestra program, telling the parents all about when to sign up and what they would be doing next semester, and she didn’t mention a word about the chime program. But maybe next time I will take the mic and do my own announcing. But hopefully enough kids will have thought it was cool and will sign up in January. I would love to have enough kids to ring all the notes in BOTH the am and the pm groups.

For now, we take a break from the chimes so I can concentrate on ringing bells for the Tabernacle Choir concerts next week. That worked out nicely.

Voting is still going on in the Clorox contest, if you would please vote HERE, that would be helpful. I still don’t know how I will finance a set of chimes for next year, but I’m hopeful it will work out.

Here are some (low-quality — sorry!) videos of the 3 songs that Ryan captured on his phone: