The 2008 Spring Preview Concert
March 29-30, 2008
The first public performance of the complete 2008 Kiltie musical repertoire was greeted with a wonderful ovation in the near full Gilmore Middle School theatre. It was the climax of the indoor portion of our 2008 season and it sets us up nicely as we head outdoors in April to begin putting “Renaissance” on the field.
Kilties from far and wide gathered at Gilmore on Saturday morning for 9 a.m. breakfast. By 10 a.m., we were all fed and we began the weekend with the guard warming up in the gym, the brass line warming up in the cafeteria, the battery in the chorus room and the pit in the theatre. After warm-ups, the various sections of the brass line and battery infiltrated numerous first floor class-rooms and hallway nooks for morning sectional work. The mellophones were lucky to have our sectional fronted by one of the 2008 Kiltie brass arrangers, Rick Kirby. Who better to teach us the subtle nuances of our parts than the man that put the notes down on paper? It was my first time working with Rick, and I hope it is not the last. His patience and enthusiasm made our sectional rehearsal time productive and fun. Thanks Rick!
Our 12:45 lunch was catered by former Kiltie junior and senior member Danny Johnson who is also the owner of Danny’s Meats. Danny presented his locally famous “pig roast.” He brought in four hind-quarters of pork, pulled and seasoned to perfection, pasta salad, baked beans, fruit salad chips, and all the fixings. The food met with rave reviews! All you local Racine folks, make sure to stop and visit Danny’s Meats, on the corner of 4-Mile Road and Charles Street. Danny has the best meats, seafood and catering in town!
The afternoon included separate visual blocks for the horns and battery. These sessions were highlighted by work on a variety marching styles that will be used at different parts of the show to highlight differences in musical style. While this is not an entirely new concept for the Kilties, especially in our guard, the changing of marching styles by the corps proper to highlight musical passages will be used much more extensively this season. I think it’s a cool idea, and I’m really looking forward to next month when we start putting the show on the field.
Much of our time after dinner was spent in full music ensemble in the theatre preparing for our Sunday performance. We defined our concert formation with the battery at the back of the stage, and the pit at the front of the stage. It was a tight fit, but we squeezed everyone in. The brass line formed two arcs between the stage and the first row of seats. Drum Major Guy Gregg conducted the rehearsal from a podium half way up the theatre.
Not everything that we played was quite ready for prime time, but the session went a long way in pointing out where we needed the most work. Our parade tunes and the closer were probably the weakest part of the production. Not surprisingly, we would focus significant effort on those tunes on Sunday. At the end of the evening Scott Stewart pulled the corps together and asked us to spend some time in the evening thinking about the parts of the music that needed attention before we got back together in the morning. He reminded us that every performance is of the utmost importance. We need to strive to make the most of each performance opportunity. It was good advice, indeed.
When we reconvened on Sunday morning, we spent the first couple of hours on visual. I got a chance to peak in on the guard as they worked on flag work in the cafeteria, and I was quite impressed. There are lots of new faces mixed in with the veterans and they were working hard and having fun.
Then we spent most of the rest of the morning getting ready for our afternoon preview concert in the theatre. We ran the entire musical repertoire, and I am happy to report that there was significant improvement from our Saturday evening efforts. At around 1:30, Scott pronounced us ready, and we broke for lunch. I spent much of my lunch break in the theatre watching “The Kenosha Beats” independent indoor drum line. They were opening the Spring Preview as our guests. Their three snare, two quad and five bass drummers occupied the area just in front of the stage, and their nine pit percussion players occupied the stage. It was very cool to watch Kiltie center snare and two-time defending DCA keyboard champion. Chris Tomaloff. run their rehearsal. Their show is very cool! They all wore khaki camouflage fatigues, and the battery had their drums decorated with savannah grasses as though they were out on safari. They play a really fun show with lots of variety in musical styles and lots of cool specialty instrumentation. Thanks Kenosha Beats, and good luck at your upcoming contest at the Target Center in Minneapolis, MN. You folks were great!!!
At 3:30 or so, we entered the theatre clad in matching black t-shirts and blue jeans. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of the crowd. The first four rows of seats were reserved for staging the various small brass ensembles that are featured during the show, but the rest of the theatre was nearly full, with folks standing in the back and by the theatre entrance. Scott welcomed everyone and gave a brief history of the organization. Then, he introduced our 2008 parade repertoire consisting of a new street beat, and two classic Norman/Sorney pieces, “Scotland the Brave” and “Auld Lang Syne”. As you might expect, these classic Kiltie songs were very well received.
Then Scott introduced our 2008 concert piece, Jerry Kelsey’s arrangement of “Water is Wide.” Scott explained that this song has special meaning for the membership and that this performance would be dedicated to the memory of Kiltie front ensemble instructor and performing member, Jim Heisinger, who recently and unexpectedly passed away. Jim's kindness, enthusiasm and great love for the activity will be greatly missed by the Kilties and all the organizations he was a part of during his decades-long drum corps career. In honor of Jim, the solo parts in “Water is Wide” were performed on keyboard by Dave “id” Hochstetter. It was hauntingly beautiful, and I had a very difficult time keeping my emotions in check during this piece.
Scott then introduced the field show program that is based on the musical works of Renaissance composer Michael Praetorious. He explained that it is quite unlike anything that has been done on a drum corps field before and that it will work because the five movements are interesting, challenging and loaded with variety and effect. From where I was standing, the performance went well. We were treated to lots of enthusiastic applause between movements. When the final note was done echoing throughout the theatre, we were treated to a wonderful standing ovation. I soaked it all in, thinking to myself “mission accomplished.”
Scott then thanked the audience, and told them that this was only the first of 23 performances that will be given by the 2008 Kilties, and he invited everyone to come to future performances in the area. He told them that he was proud of the work ethic of the corps and reminded the audience that we had accomplished all of this with only six full days of rehearsal. Then he introduced the traditional playing of “Slow Syne” to close out the weekend. It was a great way to wrap up the performance.
I had a wonderful time socializing with all the Kiltie alumni and friends in the audience after the show. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive. My favorite remark comes from Mindi Billock. She said that comparing where we are now to where we were last year at the Highland Games in June is like comparing night to cheese (it's that different). I spent the rest of the evening with a smile on my face looking back at the weekend and looking forward to April. I can’t wait to see what the visuals for this show are going to be like.
Til next time,
J.C.
