(This is continued from A Day in the Life: Part 2)
After a week of improving their play on individual instruments and rehearsing with bands, orchestras, jazz combos and other musical groups, the students are ready to perform in concert. Up to five concurrent middle school concerts in six consecutive time slots were held on Saturday morning of the first week. Parking ramps filled up fast and groups of people walked around, occasionally disagreeing on which way to turn next. Even though I knew which way to turn, I could only get to a small number of the concerts. I opted to attend concerts based on their musical variety and proximity. In other words, I tried to get to as many different types of concerts as I could without having to run 4-minute miles. I especially enjoy concert day because it reminds me of my sons going to “band camp” when they were in high school. My wife and I would pick them up and see them perform on their final day and I must admit that I definitely felt parental pride. I suspect the parents at these concerts feel the same way.
Mouse over the small photos in galleries to see captions.
Click on any one to enlarge, then use arrows to scroll through the rest of the images.
For the second week, the senior high week, up to six concurrent concerts in seven consecutive time slots were held on Friday night. Even 4-minute miles would not have sufficed to cover all of these. Friday night concerts differ from Saturday morning concerts in a way that has nothing to do with music, but has to do with photography. The evening light is often more interesting, which can make reflections on windows and the light coming through windows more colorful.
While waiting for the concerts to begin, I walked around the lobby in the Hamel Music Center and photographed the parents and family members while they also waited for the concerts to begin. Although I had taken photographs there for two weeks, I walked around some of the performance spaces to make sure that I wouldn’t encounter any unexpected changes. I must apologize because, as I walked around, I was again distracted by that fascinating stairway.
When the concerts began, I was able to visit some in both Hamel and Gordon. My goal during concerts differs somewhat from my goal during rehearsals. In addition to my usual images of the students, I try to include parents in the photos and give an idea of what they see from their vantage point. And, of course, there are always some parents using their phones to capture their children in videos. Although I take quite a few photos of the groups on stage, I do like to show small groups of musicians concentrating on playing their best. I wish I could include more photographs here, but what started as a single blog post has now grown into three posts and I fear that musicians reading this will be tired of comments about photography and photographers reading this will be tired of comments about music classes.
After the longest day of the two weeks, I’m tired and ready to head home. I have to download and process all of the images, which is very time consuming. But, there’s that little voice in my head reminding me that I enjoy this. Being around so many talented young musicians seems to infuse me with some of their joy and energy.
Some Closing Notes:
The faculty was warned ahead of time that I might be coming to their classes. When time allowed, I always introduced myself to the faculty in the room I was “invading.” They were all very tolerant of my walking around, and sometimes through, their classes. With the exception of a few smiles and waves, the students were very good at ignoring me during their rehearsals.
The main challenge for me with the Summer Music Clinic is figuring out how to cover a large number of activities that represent what takes place during the week. Before each week begins I look over a detailed spreadsheet of the upcoming activities to decide what to photograph and see when they’re scheduled and where they’re located. Then I use that information to prepare my own schedule for the week. Many classes take place at the same time, so I have to determine how to spread them out on different days. Therefore, every day is different.
At the end of each day, I give all of the photographs a quick review and submit about two dozen low-resolution images for posting on the SMC Facebook and Instagram pages. At the end of the SMC, I do a more thorough review of all of the photos and decide which ones will be included in the final set of high-resolution files that I submit. Out of over two thousand images, some are easy to toss because they’re blurry from movement or they’re out of focus. Many of those that are in focus are, in my opinion, just not very good or interesting photos. Also, I never want to submit a photo that a student might find embarrassing. I always apply the “If that were me would I go arrrrrrrghhhh?” test. Finally, I determine which of several very similar photos best represents the expression or moment I was trying to capture.
To give you a better idea of how big of a program the SMC is, here are some facts from 2022.
254 Students attended the Junior (Middle School) Session,
344 Students attended the Senior Session,
101 Faculty, many from schools other than the UW, taught the classes,
48 Counselors assisted faculty and students in classes and with outside activities, and
18 Other Staff provided technical and staging assistance.
The program was well organized and efficiently run. If asked, would I return next year? The real question is, would I still have enough energy to keep up with 600 teenagers?