The President's Corner
September 2001
Dear colleagues and friends,
First many greetings in this my first letter as President. It is an awesome privilege and honor to be elected President of WASBE, to serve a world-wide net of lovers of wind music in all of its myriad of forms. My sincere thanks for your trust, but I need your help. Whether you are involved with amateur bands in your local village, with community bands, school bands, university or conservatory bands, or professional bands at the highest level of expertise, please volunteer to help the development of WASBE. I hope that you will feel free to contact me or any of the officers or council members with your news and views, your questions, suggestions, needs, hopes and aspirations. Our Association is as strong as you, the members, make it, by your personal involvement through our publications, through the networks and in planning the conferences. Please contact any of us at any time in any language; you will find email addresses of the Officers, Council and Chairpersons in this Newsletter and on our website. My own email address is tim@timreynish.demon.co.uk
Officers and Council
I must pay tribute to Past-President Felix Hauswirth who is unique in that he served as our leader for four years. He gave the Association stability, developed the role of the Executive Director, of the Executive, and refined the roles of the various networks and committees. He also was Chairman of the Artistic Planning Committee for two superb conferences — in California and Switzerland. I am delighted that as Past-President, he will continue to work for us as Co-Chairman of the International Wind Band Literature Review Committee. I would also like to thank the members who are leaving the WASBE Council: Franco Cesarini, Roberto Farias, Laszlo Marosi, and David Whitwell and to welcome to the Council Peter Bucher, Paula Holcomb, Johann Moesenbichler, Yeh Shu Han, and two members appointed by the Council to fill vacancies due to uncompleted terms — Timothy Foley and Yasuhide Ito.
10th WASBE Conference
Our Tenth Conference was held in Lucerne, an incomparable setting with one of the world's truly great concert halls, and was organized with traditionally excellent Swiss efficiency and hospitality. It is invidious to pick out highlights, but for me it was worth the expense to hear the U. S. Marine Band in a cleverly balanced concert, which ran from early 19th century Harmoniemusik to a new commission for ten solo clarinets, in addition to masterpieces by Igor Stravinsky (the new edition of the early version of the Symphonie d'instrument à vent) and Percy Grainger (Lincolnshire Posy). The concert in the Jesuit Church by local choirs and wind orchestra of Nicolas de Flue by Arthur Honneger was equally memorable, as were fine programs by the Detroit Chamber Winds, Omnibus, and the wind orchestras of the Bruckner Konservatorium Linz and the Landesblasorchester Baden-Württemberg, while other concerts had some interesting and some great music.
The Art of Programming was our opening discussion session, one which we shall continue in two years time in Sweden. Programs at Conferences are always subject to late changes, as new commissions turn out to be too long, too short, or in a different style than expected, or the budget does not cover all of the players or singers required. However, what was for me exciting was that so often we emerged from concerts not talking about the bands but about the music.
Web Contacts
It is very easy for us sometimes to feel isolated in our work. The simplest way to keep in daily contact with other wind band enthusiasts is through Bandchat, which by courtesy of Andy McMahan is linked to the WASBE web site. A question on Bandchat, whether about seating your group, interpretation, repertoire, the best instruments to purchase, planning a tour, copyright laws, or just how to obtain the second oboe part of an obscure march, will solicit an overnight response from any of a thousand international members, including members of your Council. With the international community growing closer daily through cyberspace, we plan to make more use of our fast developing WASBE Web site. Thanks to the continuous efforts of John Stanley, our Web Editor, and Webmaster Skeeter Burroughs and his team, it is now fully established at the University of Minnesota, and you can access it on WASBE.ORG or WASBE.COM. You will find news and views of our Lucerne Conference, and information about our next Conferences in Jönköping, Sweden in 2003 and in Singapore in 2005. Elsewhere in this Newsletter are details on how you can apply to bring your band to Sweden, submit a proposal to give a paper, or have a composition presented or performed. The deadline is 1 December 2001.
For many members, attendance at a WASBE Conference is impossible because of expense considerations, professional obligations or the time involved, so we hope to meet you at the Mid-West International Conference in December, or during 2002 at the ABODA Conference in Perth, where Past-President Felix Hauswirth and new Council Member Paula Holcomb will be the main clinicians, the Mid-Europe Conference organized by new Council member Johann Moesenbichler, BASBWE Conference, Japan Band Association, CBDNA Divisional Conferences throughout the USA or other national events. If you are involved in a national or local conference or event, and if you feel that you want to host a WASBE repertoire session or conducting clinic, please contact us with your proposal, and we shall try to meet any request. We plan to develop WASBE events especially in the even-numbered years between Conferences. There will be a strong WASBE presence in February 2002 at the birthday celebrations of the Eastman Wind Ensemble at Eastman School of Music in Rochester. This will be a great opportunity to celebrate the work of Frederick Fennell and Donald Hunsberger.
WASBE Score and Tape Library
We are moving the WASBE Library from its home with the United States Marine Band to France, to the CDMC, where it will be immediately catalogued and put on their Web site. Council member Bert Aalders has been involved in developing this amazing resource which already has details of thousands of scores and discs online. You can contact CDMC at:
Philippe PFISTERER, directeur
CDMC de Haute-Alsace
Rue de l'Hospital
F-68502 Guebwiller, Cedex
France
http://www.cdmc-haute-alsace.com
email: contact@cdmc-haute-alsace.com.
The Next Two Years
In the next two years. I have five immediate goals:
- To develop the roles of the Networks and contacts with individual members.
- To help define WASBE's role in world amateur and professional music.
- To continue to develop an international repertoire of music of excellence at all grade levels.
- To establish links with colleagues in other branches of the world of music.
- To talk about music rather than about bands.
I am lucky in having so many good friends throughout the world of music to help me, and especially in my own unique Past-President, Felix (my youngest grandson is called Felix Timothy fortuitously) and our officers: Dennis Johnson, who will not only serve as President-Elect but will continue serving as Secretary, Egil Gundersen, who enters his 21st year as Treasurer, and Leon Bly, our indefatigable Executive Director. To them, to our Journal Editor William Berz, to all of our chairpersons and to you, the members, my thanks for your trust, and my best wishes for the coming two years.
Tim Reynish