The Geelong Concert Band

Congratulations to the senior band members who performed at the State Band Championships on Saturday August 21st at the Wendoree Performing Arts Centre in Ballarat. The band performed a challenging program under the direction of guest conductor Jemima Bunn and received excellent feedback from Adjudicator Graham Lloyd.  It is a great shame that other bands were not competing in the competition this year, however a score of 96/100 highlighted the playing capabilities of the Senior Band.

We have had confirmation from the VBL that the Senior Band will report at 4:00pm and perform on stage at 5:00pm on Saturday August 21st in Ballarat. At this stage Jemima is keen to have a rehearsal prior to the competition and this will be discussed at rehearsal – venue likely to be in Ballarat. Our departure time from Geelong will depend on this rehearsal and we are unlikely to return before 7:30pm.

On Friday August 6th and Friday August 13th, ALL band rehearsals will be held in the Austin Grey Centre, a part of the Humble Centre at Geelong College Senior School, Aphraisa Street, Newtown. This is not the concert hall but the rehearsal room on your left when you enter the foyer.

We had the opportunity to invite Dr Rob McWilliam, a very experienced Australian conductor who lives in the USA to come and work with the Youth and Senior Bands on Friday August 6th. Rob will be out to work with bands at the Melbourne Schools Music Festival, so it was very opportune to have him come and work with the Youth and Senior bands as they work towards their performances at the MSMF and the State Championships respectively. We realise that there is an MSO concert in Geelong that night but encourage all members to attend rehearsal on this night so that Rob will have a full band to work with and you will have to opportunity to work with a very experienced conductor.

Geelong Entertainment Books are now available for $55 each. The GCB are currently selling these books as a fundraiser for the band. The book contains $1000’s of savings and all you need to do is use the book 2-3 times and you have made your money back. We can also purchase Melbourne Entertainment Books at a cost of $65. Unsold entertainment books will be returned to the distributor at the end of July, so please see Trish if you would like to purchase one or email geelongcb@gmail.com.

The SENIOR band will return to rehearsals on Friday January 29th from 7-10pm. It is likely that there will be a Big Band rehearsal on this night from 5:30-7:00pm also but this will be confirmed with individual players.

YOUTH and WORKSHOP bands will return to rehearsals the following Friday on February 5th at their regular times ie Workshop Band 4:30 – 6:00pm and Youth Band 6:00 – 8:00pm – Senior band will also rehearse at their regular time of 8:00-10:00pm from this night onwards.

If you have any questions regarding these times, please contact Trish for further information.

A huge thank-you to everyone who assisted at the Bunnings Sausage Sizzle on December 19th. Many thanks to Amanda for all of her hard work in organisating the day for the band. It turned out to be a very busy day with the sale of 110kg of sausages and 25kg of onions between 9am and 5pm. Many thanks to Heather for running around and organising an extra 50kg of sausages when we ran out at 1pm!

All in all we made a profit of just over $2400.

The Workshop,Youth and Senior bands of the Geelong Concert Band will present their final in house concert for 2009 on Friday December 4th at 7pm at Robertson Hall, Geelong College Prep School, Minerva Road, Newtown. Tickets can be purchased at the door – Adults $8 and Concession $5.

Raffle tickets will be sold on the night – 50c each or 3 for $1 – there are multiple Christmas Hampers to be won and a Christmas Cake.

Could all Youth Band members be at Robertson Hall by 6pm – Katie would like to do a quick run through before the concert. Workshop Band members need to be present by 6:15pm and Senior band members by the start of the concert. All band members must be in full band uniform for this concert.

If you have items for the hamper, please bring them along, we will leave a hamper open to add extra items on the night.

This Friday is the final rehearsal for all three bands for term 3. There will then be a two week break for the Youth and Workshop Bands who will return to rehearsals on Friday October 9th at the normal times. The Senior band will however return on Friday October 2nd from 7-9:30pm in preparation for Concert of the Decade which will be staged on Saturday October 3rd at Costa Hall – performance and report times will be given out at rehearsal on Friday October 2nd. Tickets for Concert of the Decade can be purchased from the CoGG – only catch is that you must be over 50 years of age to attend as it is the opening concert of Seniors Week 2009.

Congratulations to all of the members of the GCB who performed at last weekends Annual Costa Hall Concert. The concert was very successful with all bands playing extremely well. A big thank-you to our special guests Tim McCallum, Reyna and Chris Hudgell for their amazing ability to perform and entertain the audiance.

Colin Mockett has completed a review which can be found on the Entertainment Geelong website at the following link:

http://www.entertainmentgeelong.com/nnreviews.html