Sunday, August 26, 2012

Okay, My last post formatted in a very strange way and the link to the Commandant's photo did not completely underlined. Here is the photo. They were playing the end to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" with canons going off at the end. Every time the canons went off, he would raise his hands in that direction. The Marines now have a copy of this and forwarded it to the commandant.

Welcome to the 2012-2013 year at CMU

Hello all. I hope you all have had a restful summer and are raring to go. It was a good summer for the Cox family. We spent a number of days at amusement parks around the country. As part of Sarah's Make-A-Wish, we were given a "passport" to many amusement parks for a one day free entrance. So we took advantage of it: Hershey Park (PA); Morey's Pier (NJ); Santa's Village (NH); Michigan's Adventure (you can figure out where this one is located); and will end the summer with a trip to Cedar Point (OH) next weekend (Memorial Day weekend). During our summer vacation, we visited Washington, D. C. and watched both the President's Band and Commandant's Drum and Bugle Corp perform in parade-style at their barracks. Every Friday night, in the summer, from 1957 until the present, they perform these parades - it was magnificent! Here is a link to their page: http://www.marines.mil/unit/barracks/Pages/eveningparade.aspx If you would like to see one of the pictures I managed to get of the corp finale, it can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mctuba/7476360968/in/photostream Though we did have quite a scare afterwards. While trying to hail a tax, this wall of sand and 80 mph winds started pelting us. We ran to the nearest subway, where the cops were yelling at everyone to get down to safety, and waited out the storm. After finally finding our way back to Georgetown, we discovered that this storm had been the worse non-tornado storm in Virginia's history. 17 people were killed, power was out for days, thousands of trees down, and some of the worse damage had been where we were standing!!! The rest of my summer has been dedicated to remodeling the house (excluding our jaunt over to Blue Lake for the Falcone competition). Though school is starting, I still have a number of items left on my "to-do" list. Speaking of the Falcone competition, I played the new Gillingham piece written for me at both the Falcone competition and premiered it at the International Women's Brass Conference in early June. It has also been chosen as the semi-final accompanied piece for the Falcone Artist Tuba in 2013. It is now published by C. Allan and is a wonderful piece!!! Guaranteed to be one of his big hits. I feel very fortunate to have had to written for me! Now, down to business. - I would like to welcome the three new freshmen to the studio: Noah Lapp and Nelson Gast on euphonium and Michael Woodman on tuba. If you run into them, please introduce yourself and see if they need any help. - Masterclasses start on Monday, 10 September 2012 from 7-9. I changed my policy for this year. Attendance is required of both freshmen and sophomores. It will be held in room 230. - Lessons - start tomorrow, Monday, 27 August 2012. The signup sheet is on my bulletin board if you have not already signed up for a time. PLEASE USE PENCIL when signing up. - Studio Party and make-up Kayak trip - TBA. I need to sit down with the marching band schedule and see if there is a free time. More on this soon. - New Music: I have a WHOLE bunch of new music for this year. A music store in Detroit went out of business and Marshall Music bought it all up. They had an 80% off sell and I bought a ton of it. I have several copies of the Vaughan Williams Tuba Concerto that I would be willing to sell for cheap, as well as a couple of extra copies of the Hartley Euphonium Concerto. First come - first served. - Studio classes and tuba/euph ensemble: The first studio class will be tomorrow in room 218. NO INSTRUMENTS NEEDED. Freshmen will need to go to orientation in Chamichian Hall (?) instead. The first studio class/ensemble rehearsal will take place on 5 September 2012 (11:00 m) in room 157. Bring instruments - we will be playing (and handing out) the t/e ensemble music. - Central Foundation auditions: I will need to talk to the current CF members at the studio class this Monday to see about auditions. There is a tuba position available this semester. Tuba players, if you are interested, please shoot me a separate email to let me know ASAP. Once I know who is auditioning, I will let them know what is needed of them. - Tuba Room Keys: tuba players, if you don't have a key for the room, let Scott Burgess know and I will get an email from him to verify that you need one. - Possible New Tuba: tuba players - last year I requested a new F tuba to add to our arsenal. The purchase was delayed for a year and we should be able to buy a new one for this year (as long as budgets have not been slashed too much). I came across a really good F tuba this summer and am thinking about it as our purchase. It is made, by all people, by Gemeinhardt!!! They are now making brass instruments and a good friend of mine is in charge of the brass instrument division (and design). He has an amazing line of elementary, middle school and high school tubas and euphoniums. He brought 8 different tubas and one euphonium for me to try out this summer. One of the tubas was an F tuba. It played great and was more than half the price of any other F tuba that I have played. If you are curious about it (or any of the other instruments), there is a poster on my bulletin board with brief descriptions and prices. Okay, I think that is it for now. I will be in the office early Monday morning if you need something. See you soon, Dr. Cox