Well May is beginning to come to a close and a lot has happened recently. Mary and I moved out of our apartment in Eau Claire and today was my last day teaching as a long term substitute music teacher at Crestview Academy (though I still have one day to take care of some grading etc). It was pretty awesome working in that school and with those students. Though many days were very challenging it was a great experience overall. I just learned a ton and had a really great time. Yesterday my last day teaching at Chippewa Falls HIgh School and back in April we wrapped up a very successful Menomonie Winter Drum Line season. It's been really weird saying good bye to these students and these programs that I've poured so much time into. I've been working at Menomonie for nearly five years and Chippewa for four years. I've also been slowly saying good bye to private students that I've been working with for just as long! I've been so blessed to have developed so many good relationships and to have been able to share music with so many incredible people.
Another exciting update is that back in April I found out that I was accepted to all of the graduate programs that I applied to (University of Southern California, University of North Texas, University of Miami, University of Northern Colorado, and McGill University). I would have been honored to just be accepted into any of them, but am truly thankful that I got accepted into all of them! Through many conversations with Mary and lots of thinking we decided to attend The University of Northern Colorado. I am super excited for this great opportunity. I was also fortunate to get an assistantship there as well so I will be doing some teaching out there and will receive some tuition assistance which Mary and I are both very excited about! We still have a lot to do before we get out to Greeley Colorado, but we are faithful and confident that everything will work out as it always seems to, and if it doesn't we'll still be O.K. ha.
I've also been doing a lot of playing still along with the usual teaching load. I just recorded a big band album with my friend and Eau Claire alum Keith Karns and performed a gig before-hand at the Grand Little Theatre in Eau Claire. The band was pretty awesome, and the tunes were also very cool and challenging but still really fun! I'll put up a video on the listen/watch page. I've also still been playing with Josh Gallagher and Aaron Hedenstrom every week at Obsession Chocolates. It's been great playing with the same people every week! I've also had a few Shanghi Bistro gigs recently and a few more in the future which is always great too. I've dropped the ball on updating the gig Calendar, I'll try to fix that this summer.
Besides that I got asked to play with UW-Eau Claire's first jazz ensemble again to accompany guest artist Bobby Sanabria on some latin percussion instruments. It was really fun playing with him! Dr. Crowell my former percussion professor at UWEC also played, so that was cool too! But the whole thing was definitely a learning experience. I was teaching at Crestview, had my usual load of private students and had to judge at the festival, so it was a pretty intense week with the knock downs, performances, and no sleep, etc. But Bobby is absolutely awesome and showed me a lot of things that I didn't know. Check him out if you're not familiar with him.
A few weeks ago Mr. Baca (UWEC's Jazz 1 director) brought Bobby back to record on their new CD. So Mary and I got to record with him which was really fun, and again a great learning experience. We showed up at 9 P.M. and didn't leave until 6:30 the next morning. It was actually pretty awesome and you'll get to hear a recording of Mary singing one of the tracks!! I don't think any of us expected that!! It's not every day that you get to record with Bobby Sanabria, let alone sing on a track of his! ha. So props to my awesome wife!
It's really been crazy coming to grips that we're leaving Eau Claire, but exciting at the same time. Mary is already in Burnsville where we'll be this summer and I'm staying in my former house in Aaron's (Hedenstrom) room. It's been awesome catching up with him and hanging out. He's getting married this summer and going to grad school at UNT next fall! He's such a great friend and it's always great hanging out with him.
I'm just hoping to practice, listen to music, catch up with friends, and play a little before we leave so if you're going to be around the area please don't hesitate to look us up to hang out.
More to come!
Another exciting update is that back in April I found out that I was accepted to all of the graduate programs that I applied to (University of Southern California, University of North Texas, University of Miami, University of Northern Colorado, and McGill University). I would have been honored to just be accepted into any of them, but am truly thankful that I got accepted into all of them! Through many conversations with Mary and lots of thinking we decided to attend The University of Northern Colorado. I am super excited for this great opportunity. I was also fortunate to get an assistantship there as well so I will be doing some teaching out there and will receive some tuition assistance which Mary and I are both very excited about! We still have a lot to do before we get out to Greeley Colorado, but we are faithful and confident that everything will work out as it always seems to, and if it doesn't we'll still be O.K. ha.
I've also been doing a lot of playing still along with the usual teaching load. I just recorded a big band album with my friend and Eau Claire alum Keith Karns and performed a gig before-hand at the Grand Little Theatre in Eau Claire. The band was pretty awesome, and the tunes were also very cool and challenging but still really fun! I'll put up a video on the listen/watch page. I've also still been playing with Josh Gallagher and Aaron Hedenstrom every week at Obsession Chocolates. It's been great playing with the same people every week! I've also had a few Shanghi Bistro gigs recently and a few more in the future which is always great too. I've dropped the ball on updating the gig Calendar, I'll try to fix that this summer.
Besides that I got asked to play with UW-Eau Claire's first jazz ensemble again to accompany guest artist Bobby Sanabria on some latin percussion instruments. It was really fun playing with him! Dr. Crowell my former percussion professor at UWEC also played, so that was cool too! But the whole thing was definitely a learning experience. I was teaching at Crestview, had my usual load of private students and had to judge at the festival, so it was a pretty intense week with the knock downs, performances, and no sleep, etc. But Bobby is absolutely awesome and showed me a lot of things that I didn't know. Check him out if you're not familiar with him.
A few weeks ago Mr. Baca (UWEC's Jazz 1 director) brought Bobby back to record on their new CD. So Mary and I got to record with him which was really fun, and again a great learning experience. We showed up at 9 P.M. and didn't leave until 6:30 the next morning. It was actually pretty awesome and you'll get to hear a recording of Mary singing one of the tracks!! I don't think any of us expected that!! It's not every day that you get to record with Bobby Sanabria, let alone sing on a track of his! ha. So props to my awesome wife!
It's really been crazy coming to grips that we're leaving Eau Claire, but exciting at the same time. Mary is already in Burnsville where we'll be this summer and I'm staying in my former house in Aaron's (Hedenstrom) room. It's been awesome catching up with him and hanging out. He's getting married this summer and going to grad school at UNT next fall! He's such a great friend and it's always great hanging out with him.
I'm just hoping to practice, listen to music, catch up with friends, and play a little before we leave so if you're going to be around the area please don't hesitate to look us up to hang out.
More to come!
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