herbiehancock

My son spent last week at Orchestra String Camp.  He had a great time!  We got to hear him play in both a chamber concert and an orchestra concert last weekend before we brought him home.  I didn't take these pictures. They were shared with me by a friend.  This is a group shot of the campers.  My son is in the next to last row, second from the right side.  His girlfriend is next to him on the left. I thought this was a pretty picture of the musicians on the stage.  My son is at the far right side in the back, second from the end, playing an upright bass. I really like this last photo.  My son is in the middle here. He is keeping busy this summer.  He is tutoring three younger orchestra students on the bass.  He has also been asked to play his bass in the orchestra pit of the community theater group's summer production of Oklahoma .  He played with the high school pit orchestra for their performance of South Pacific earlier this ye...

I've had a lovely music filled day.  The church orchestra played for our service this morning.  Thank the heavens above it went much, much better than the last time they played.  They played a medley of Christmas hymns that everyone thoroughly enjoyed. Both my husband and my younger son were a part of the church orchestra this morning.  My husband played the electric bass and my son played the upright bass.  The next  pictures are of the orchestra and the pulpit at my church.    This next photo is of the side of the church where you can see some of the stained glass windows. After the service, I took a couple of pictures of the front of the sanctuary.  I think our church is beautiful all the time, but it looked especially pretty and festive today with the Christmas trees there. The Christmas trees were decorated with white lights, sprigs of red berries, and red cardinal birds.   This is a shot of the back of the church where there is mo...

I hope you all will forgive me for beaming with pride, but I wanted to share with you some of the music I heard this past Sunday. My younger son played his upright bass in the local high school orchestra concert that day, and I was in attendance. His girlfriend, also in the orchestra, played the violin. They were in their formal wear for the performance as you can see. I made videos of three of the four songs they played during the concert. My son is in the back on the right hand side of the stage playing the upright bass. You can see just the top of his head occasionally above one of the music stands. His girlfriend is seated, playing the violin, just to the left of the director in the middle of the stage if you want to watch for her when I turn the camera over in that direction. The quality of these videos, taken with our inexpensive camera by me---the one with NO camera skills, is poor at best. I think I managed, unknowingly, to cut off the beginning of one of these songs a...

Well, it's Friday, which, in and of itself, is a great reason to celebrate. What's more, today is my younger son's last day of school. So I am sure you know that he is feeling like celebrating. After today he is officially a freshman in high school. He has had a good week. Yesterday, his class voted, and he was chosen as next year's freshman representative on the student council. The day before that he received a letter from the Toledo Youth Symphony Orchestra . Based on his audition, he has been chosen to be one of their upright bass players in next year's youth symphony orchestra. Here is the mission statement from their website: " As part of the core educational mission of the Toledo Symphony, the Toledo Youth Orchestra brings together 100 of the most talented students from Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan in an atmosphere of musical excellence." My son is elated. His mom is pretty happy about this whole matter as well. So with so many r...

My son plays the upright bass (sometimes called a double bass) in his junior high school orchestra. This month he was chosen to perform as a member of the Ohio Music Education Association, District 1 Junior High School Honors Orchestra in a concert this past Sunday, March 1, 2009 at the Stranahan Theater in Toledo, Ohio. Participants in this orchestra were selected through a recorded audition process from students from six counties in Northwest Ohio. We traveled to hear him play in the concert, of course, and loved the music. I thought I'd share some pictures with you of our trip and the concert. There are quite a few here, but you can probably scroll through them pretty fast. Many of these were taken through the car windows and the car was moving at the time, so I apologize for the poor quality of some of the images. The bass in its case was in the back section of the van with the front end of it extended over the middle seat. This forced my younger son and his girlfriend to ...