Finale of the cluster concert I arranged with our area's elementary band/orchestra teacher. The idea was to have a concert featuring all 7 of our area performing ensembles. 5th, 6th, and 7/8th grade groups all have their own separate bands and orchestras, and the high school has a concert band (which includes some strings) and a jazz band. The thought was that allowing students and parents to see the different phases of progress through the program would inspire them to continue on with instrumental music and to become more involved in the program. As a special finale to the program we had ALL of the groups play together on a song. The elementary teacher suggested "Don't stop Believin" by Journey and I set myself to the task of arranging the piece. Arranging parts that 10 year old beginners all the way through 18 year old advanced players could be engaged in playing (this entailed writing anywhere from 2 to 4 separate parts for each instrument in band and orchestra) was difficult enough by itself, but the logistics of seating over 300 students in the same performance space and trying to get a combined rehearsal accomplished before our performance was even more daunting. Hours of work were put into what ultimately turned out to be an enormous success. Because of the recording quality and the echo in the venue the audio doesn't match up completely with the video (so it appears that my conducting doesn't synch with the playing). I also had to scale back the resolution so that the video could fit into an email. Hopefully this is not too much of a distraction. Less