Honor Winds Update

Highlights from this email:

• Concert on Tuesday
• Itinerary attached
• NO Tuesday sectionals
• BAKE SALE at the concert
• Please contribute to the bake sale if you can, this has historically brought in a lot of money for the band program!
• NEW! There will be a Kendra Scott pop-up shop at the concert!
• There will be a Kendra Scott pop-up shop at the concert too!
• The band will get 20% of all purchases
• Nothing bundt cakes Flower Mound - ARGYLE BAND BOOSTER WEEK!
• Elementary tour Friday 12/13 during school
• All-region clinic and concert Saturday 12/14
• Please see the parent letter emailed out Tuesday, November 19th at 7AM!
• I'll send another email reminder out later this week so you don't have to dig for it, but it'll be an 8:00 dropoff at your student's rehearsal site.
• Concerts start at 4:00 at Flower Mound High School.
• Your student will need their black formal uniform for the concert.
• Recording session dates!
• Please put all of these dates in your calendar
• Parent Volunteers urgently needed for concessions
• Please volunteer just ONE time per year if you can!
• No experience at ALL is needed and it's a fun way to get to know other band parents!
• We also need a coordinator of middle school concessions, please contact Deni Day at concessions@argylebandboosters.com or 206-265-3377 if you're interested!

Where: Argyle Middle School Auditorium!

• Students get dropped off in the back of the school by the tennis courts.
• Parents enter at the front of the school into the auditorium.
• Parents, please do not walk through the band hall, you will be asked to go around as we will be trying to manage 240 kids!

Attire: Black formal uniform with some exceptions, please see below

6:00PM - All students need to be seated in the auditorium with instruments assembled by this time.

• There will not be ANY sectionals this day!
• Students can not hang out after school on Tuesday, the band hall will be closed!
• Concert Band on stage
• All other students seated in the audience

6:30PM - Concert starts, each band will perform and transition back into the audience

• Concert Band will perform first
• Symphonic Band
• Symphonic Winds (3 pieces)
• Honor Winds (3 pieces)
• Jazz Band (3 pieces)

8:00 - Approximate concert end

Attire for the concert will be the black formal uniform with TWO exceptions:

1) Students may wear some sort of festive / Christmas holiday sweater instead of their black shirt (Ugly sweaters allowed and encouraged!). They still need to wear the black pants / shoes!

2) All students may wear a Santa hat or a Christmas/Festive themed hat or headgear (Reindeer antlers are surprisingly popular! That's why I say headgear and not just hats!)

• Scotch tape / Painter's tape are okay
• Duct tape / Gorilla tape is a NO
• No glue on instruments, please!

Battery powered LEDs and lights are welcome! Please make sure your student does not need to be plugged into a power outlet for their decor to work. :)

The black formal uniform includes all of the following:

Boys:

• Black Tuxedo Shirt and pants (Provided) OR a Christmas sweater
• Solid, high length black socks with no design/pattern
• White socks are not acceptable with a solid black uniform!
• Solid black closed-toe dress shoes
• Brown shoes are not acceptable with a solid black uniform!
• Black Belt

Girls

• Black Blouse and Palazzo Pants (Provided)
• Black leggings / stockings
• Black closed-toe formal flats or dress shoes (No heels, please!)

(Or anyone who just wants to contribute!)

We are having a bake sale at the holiday concert, December 10th. Showcase your incredible baking (or shopping, we won't tell!) skills, and consider donating baked goods for this event! All proceeds go to the Argyle Band Program.

Please package items so they can be sold individually. If you have any questions, please contact fundraising@argylebandboosters.com

On the day of the concert, the items can be sent with your child to school or dropped off in the auditorium area at 5pm.

After the concert, while we strike the stage and get kids back to the band hall to case up, you'll have plenty of time to talk to your fellow band parents and enjoy some tasty baked goods!

Kendra Scott has agreed to set up a Kendra Gives Back event at the concert with the band getting 20% of the revenue! This is a great chance to get some Christmas presents!

If you prefer to shop online, you can use the code GIVEBACK-IGRYE at checkout from December 10-12th and the band will get 20%.

Please see details below.

On Friday, December 13th we will be going on our annual elementary tour with Honor Winds and the Varsity Choir to perform for the 5th graders at all 4 elementary schools. Students will need to wear their black band T-Shirt. Students must be passing all classes and in good academic and disciplinary standing to travel with us.

We will feed the students pizza (Pepperoni and cheese) from Papa Johns. They should bring their own water bottle to drink from! It looks like it will be be about 60 degrees outside when we eat lunch at Unity Park by SGC under the pavilion, so I'd recommend your students bring a hoodie or jacket for that part of the day, but otherwise all performances will be indoors!

If your student would prefer to eat something else, they can bring their own lunch! They will be able to keep their food on the bus until lunchtime.

WEAR THIS SHIRT AND JEANS:

Please see the email sent out on Tuesday, November 19th at 7:00AM if your student made the all-region band for all of the information!

March recording sessions:

- Monday, March 3rd during school in the AMS Auditorium

- Wednesday, March 5th, ~7:00PM @ Argyle High School Auditorium

May recording concerts:

- Monday, May 5th - Recording concert immediately after school

- Tuesday, May 6th - Spring concert (Normal concert schedule like the one for next week)

- Monday May 12th - Recording concert immediately after school

- Tuesday, May 13th - Recording concert at St. Andrews church in Plano, transportation and dinner provided (~6:00PM). We have reserved this venue as the acoustics are STUNNING

If you didn't have a chance to read the information below last week, please take a second to do so. If you read it last week, no need, everything below this is the same:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sorry, I know this is a lot! Please take a moment and read through this when you get a chance, there are some very important dates for next semester, please make sure they make it onto your calendar (They're already on the band one, so if you use Google Calendar and have added the middle school band one to yours, you're good to go!)

It's December 1st, so it's the day we can officially start working on our Honor Band contest music for the Spring! Tomorrow in class, we will start one of our pieces, Bravura. Please ask your students to read the post on Google Classroom. They have a short homework assignment due Wednesday (Numbering their measures neatly in all 3 pieces).

They can get their music as soon as they get to school tomorrow, it'll be at the front of the band hall and labeled. A lot of students are already asking me for it and they are more than welcome to pick it up as soon as they get to school.

What's this honor band thing he keeps talking about?

The Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) hosts a competition every year wherein all of the best programs from around the state submit recordings of their bands at the end of the year performing their contest pieces. It's kind of like the football playoffs, but for band. The recordings are adjudicated and ranked at the region level first

• The top 4 bands each region advance to the area round
• The top 4 from each area advance to State Prelims
• The top bands from State Prelims advance to State Finals
• All of the bands at state finals are ranked
• You only compete with schools in your classification
• Just like high schools are 1A - 6A, middle schools are 1C, 2C, and 3C based on school size
• We're a 3C middle school

• 2 years ago when we applied 3 of the top 10 3C middle schools were from our region!
• Last year was a 2C honor band year. 3 of the top 10 2C middle schools were from our region!

Due to the high cost of recording sessions, traveling, etc, TMEA breaks it down by school classification to where you can only apply every other year. This year happens to be our year. The band that earns 1st overall gets invited to perform at the annual TMEA convention in San Antonio. In 2022, the Argyle High School band was named the class 4A Honor Band! We took the middle school band down to San Antonio to watch the high school band's performance that year because it was such a huge honor!

We are only allowed FOUR recording dates and have to submit them well in advance, reserve venues, book a recording engineer way in advance, etc etc so all of these dates had to be firmly set months ago. (Recording engineers typically have to be booked a full year in advance for things like this)

There are some very important dates to put on your calendars now. We will need all students in attendance for these recording concerts:

- Monday, May 5th - Recording concert immediately after school

- Tuesday, May 6th - Spring concert (Normal concert schedule like the one for next week)

- Monday May 12th - Recording concert immediately after school

- Tuesday, May 13th - Recording concert at St. Andrews church in Plano, transportation and dinner provided (~6:00PM). We have reserved this venue as the acoustics are STUNNING

More details coming in the Spring about these recording concerts, but you will absolutely be allowed to come watch / listen. We are bringing in a professional recording engineer to record both the middle school and high school bands back to back (To make it more cost-efficient) as it is an Honor Band year for the high school band as well.

Midwest Clinic

A different thing you'll be hearing about next semester is an application to perform at next year's Midwest clinic in Chicago. I just want this to be on everyone's radar now, but we'll be doing two recording sessions the week before Spring Break and will have an answer in mid to late April on if next year's Honor Winds students get invited to perform in Chicago next school year. We will have two recording sessions for Midwest and need every student present for these recording sessions.

The middle school band has never gotten the invitation to perform at Midwest but we're going to give it our best shot this year!

Please put these two dates on your calendar now:

- Monday, March 3rd during school in the AMS Auditorium

- Wednesday, March 5th, ~7:00PM @ Argyle High School Auditorium

That's a quote that appears on the front page of all of the TMEA Honor band programs that I've latched onto the last few years.

While you hear us talk about competition a lot and go to a lot of contests, we always stress to the students that it's friendly competition and that it's to make everyone better! We are good friends with many of the band directors in Lewisville, Denton, and Northwest ISD and we are ALL in this together to help ALL of our students grow as musicians and to learn a lot of character lessons through music!

The best way to learn those character lessons is by holding each other accountable, holding each other to a high standard, and helping each other achieve at the highest possible level at all times!

The concession stand had to close on Monday last week because there were no adult volunteers. On a typical night, the concession stand brings in about $500 to the band boosters so we unfortunately lost out on that. If every band parent just volunteers one time per year for concessions, we can easily fill up every time slot!

If we continuously struggle to staff the concession stand, there have been talks of it going to a different organization in the district, which would be a huge financial hit to our band boosters.

All of the money goes back to your kids in the form of scholarships, supplies, paying for lesson teachers to come in for master classes, paying for clinicians to come in and work with the kids, help to pay for food for kids, and much more.

We also need a coordinator of middle school concessions, please contact Deni Day at concessions@argylebandboosters.com or 206-265-3377

I'm just leaving this graphic in here so I don't have to create it again next week. :)

All of our events for this school year are already on the calendar! We use Google Calendar in the district. Please add the middle school band calendar to your calendar and you'll always be in the loop when it comes to upcoming events!

Argyle Middle School

Email: bojan.gutic@argyleisd.com
Website: www.argyleband.com
Location: Argyle Middle School, U.S. 377, Argyle, TX, USA
Phone: 940-262-7777 31324
Facebook: facebook.com/argylemsband